He’s back.
One of the first big moves Chicago made amidst a slew of signings on July 1 was bringing Teuvo Teravainen back to the fold, a former 2012 first-round pick (18th overall) who won a Cup with Chicago in 2015 and was traded away one year later in one of the worst trades of recent Blackhawks memory.
Before we jump ahead to the present, let’s take a quick stroll down memory lane and remember what Teuvo did in his initial brief Blackhawks stint that made him such a cult hero.
This goal is a decent sample:
And, of course, there was a young Teuvo leading the Blackhawks to a come-from-behind victory in Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Final when he was still just TWENTY years old:
So what’s our sweet Finnish boy been doing on his way to becoming a full-grown Finnish man? The data below starts in Teuvo’s age-23 season back in 2017-18, when he really stared finding his NHL footing during his second season with Carolina.
| Year | GP | G | A | P | ATOI | S% | CF%* | xGF%* | HDCF%* | oZS%* |
| 2017-18 | 82 | 23 | 41 | 64 | 16:53 | 12.4 | 56.43 | 54.96 | 53.57 | 59.13 |
| 2018-19 | 82 | 21 | 55 | 76 | 17:55 | 12.6 | 55.02 | 53.41 | 52.66 | 51.18 |
| 2019-20 | 68 | 15 | 48 | 63 | 19:12 | 8.2 | 57.65 | 54.57 | 54.44 | 58.02 |
| 2020-21 | 21 | 5 | 10 | 15 | 16:26 | 10.2 | 56.27 | 54.77 | 55.37 | 56.98 |
| 2021-22 | 77 | 22 | 43 | 65 | 17:42 | 10.9 | 53.91 | 52.44 | 52.09 | 57.23 |
| 2022-23 | 68 | 12 | 25 | 37 | 16:55 | 8.3 | 56.59 | 55.81 | 52.66 | 59.96 |
| 2023-24 | 76 | 25 | 28 | 53 | 16:24 | 17.6 | 59.43 | 56.56 | 53.07 | 56.97 |
Teuvo flirted with a point-per-game pace towards the end of the prior decade but hasn’t come close to that recently. He also had a bit of a rebound season in 2023-24 following some less-than-stellar numbers in 2022-23 — although Teuvo chalked up some of those 2022-23 struggles to injury issues during exit interviews back in May.
One number which should stand out is the shot percentage of 17.6 last season, a key factor in his career-high 25 goals in 2023-24. Considering Teuvo’s is at 10.7 percent for his career, that number is likely due for some regression next season. But that also may have been some measure of a market correction after he was at 8.3 percent in 2022-23, which resulted in the lowest goals-per-game rate since his 2014-15 season in Chicago — a season he started as a 20-year-old.
Still, the overall numbers have trended a downward a bit in the last few seasons and some decline can be expected as a player approaches 30 — which, yeah, he’ll turn 30 in September, and that is bonkers — but there were some other factors going on here. The first is that Teuvo didn’t have quite as much power-play ice time in the last few seasons. He was up over 200 minutes of PP ice time during the height of his Carolina tenure, but that time slowly decreased in the last few seasons: 159:49 in 2022-23 (6th among Carolina forwards) and 169:01 in 2023-24 (4th). After an eye-popping 31 power-play points (9 G, 22 A) in 2021-22, he’s had just 11 points (5 G, 6 A) and 17 points (9 G, 8 A), in the last two seasons, respectively, with that low 2021-22 total as part of the reason for that season’s overall subpar output. Should Teuvo’s power-play opportunities increase in Chicago — and they absolutely should — it’s possible those numbers tick back up, which would help keep Teuvo’s overall point totals in the 50s in Chicago and perhaps even help usher them back into the 60s.
Teuvo’s linemates are also worth exploring. For the last handful of seasons (we’ll skip 2020-21 due to Teuvo skating just 21 games in that pandemic-shortened season), Sebastian Aho — Carolina’s primary offensive weapon for several seasons — has been on the ice most consistently with Teuvo during 5-on-5 play for severral season. But notice how much lower that ice time was in the last couple of seasons:
- 2023-24: Aho (435:21), Andrei Svechnikov (353:07)
- 2022-23: Seth Jarvis (424:52), Aho (389:55)
- 2021-22: Aho (617:45), Vincent Trocheck (226:25)
- 2019-20: Aho (672:52), Nino Niederreiter (441:16)
- 2018-19: Aho (603:16), Micheal Ferland (520:43)
Aho’s top linemate last season wasn’t even Teuvo: it was Jarvis (548:49). For comparison’s sake, Connor Bedard skated 764:13 of 5-on-5 ice time with top linemate Philipp Kurashev last season. Give Teuvo that much 5-on-5 ice time with Bedard and wouldn’t be a surprise to see his production rates soar in that part of the game as well.
A pass-first winger who can set up Bedard in prime scoring situations? Yeah, that’ll work. And, as that tweet above mentions, Teuvo remains a solid two-way forward who will also contribute on the penalty kill, adding more to the overall value this acquisition brings to Chicago.
Even though Teuvo has had some downward trends in the last few seasons, it’s not like his production fell off of a cliff. The healthier drop-off in the 2022-23 season may have just been an injury-induced blip on the radar, as Teuvo did appear to have plenty of juice left in a productive 2023-24 season — even if he had some puck luck with that atypically high shot percentage.
Everyone in Chicago will be auditioning for the lottery ticket that is a spot on Bedard’s wing for the 2024-25 season. Should Teuvo end up being the lucky winner — and it’s hard to find more fitting candidates on the Blackhawks current roster — then it wouldn’t be a total surprise to see Teuvo producing at similar rates that he did while he was skating a significant chunk of his season with the top offensive weapon in Carolina.