Minnesota Frost second-round pick Viivi Vainikka has started the season red hot in the SDHL. Playing for MoDo before the PWHL season begins, Vainikka has scored five goals and seven points in her first three SDHL games this season.
Let’s dig into Viivi Vainikka’s first three games with MoDo and find out why Frost fans should be excited about Vainikka’s PWHL debut with the Minnesota Frost.
Speed and Skill
If you watch Viivi Vainikka play for a couple of shifts, her speed and stickhandling ability will jump out almost immediately. Vainikka is a dynamic skater. She’s got both quickness and speed, and there is no sign of slowing down when the puck is on her stick. These attributes make her deadly in open ice. Vainikka is dangerous attacking on the rush, constantly trying to beat defenders with her speed and a nifty stickhandling move. If you give her time and space, you are liable to end up on the wrong end of a highlight reel.
It didn’t take long for Vainikka to create a highlight reel play this season. In her first game of the season against Brynäs, she collected a pass that was behind her, made a nifty move through her legs to get the puck to her backhand, and beat Klára Peslarová in the Brynäs net through the five-hole.
In her second game against Luleå, Vainikka used her speed to create a turnover. Once she recovered the puck, she made a nifty move around a defender in the neutral zone and finished off the ensuing odd-skater rush with a beautiful passing play. It was Vainikka’s second goal and third point of the night.
Vainikka’s YouTube highlights are full of flashy plays like these. She’s the kind of player that gets fans out of their seats when she has the puck in open ice. The highlight reel plays may not come quite as often in the PWHL, but Vainikka’s skating and skill can be difference makers for the Minnesota Frost.
Playmaking
The dekes are jaw-dropping, but Vainikka does more than just put people on highlight reels. Vainikka has poise when she has the puck. She plays the game at her pace and never looks to be in a hurry with the puck on her stick.
Vainikka has a great understanding of time and space on the ice. When she has the puck, Vainikka is constantly pulling defenders towards her, and then moving the puck to open teammates in the space that the defenders vacated.
On this power-play breakout, Vainikka beats the first defender in the neutral zone, and then pulls a Brynäs defender to her along the wall before making a backhand pass to an open teammate.
Vainikka’s style of play takes full advantage of the extra time and space the bigger ice sheet in Sweden provides. One big question for Vainikka will be how will she adapt her playmaking game to a smaller ice sheet in the faster, more physical PWHL. Can she display the same type of poise with the puck and playmaking ability when the game speeds up and the ice shrinks?
Goalscoring
There is no question that Vainikka can score in the SDHL; she’s scored five goals in three games already this season. In her career, she’s scored 110 goals in 211 SDHL regular season games.
Vainikka is listed at only five feet, five inches, but you wouldn’t know it based on how she plays. She doesn’t stay on the perimeter. Several of her goals this season for MoDo have come from in and around the opponent’s crease.
These goals display not just a willingness to go to the front of the net, but a real skill at finding open spaces. Vainikka doesn’t hang out in front and battle for positioning with bigger players. Instead, she flashes in and out of open spaces, utilizing her agility and quickness to get open.
Highlight-reel goals off the rush are great, but Vainikka will need to score in a variety of ways to score consistently in the PWHL. Despite her size, she’s shown an ability to do it in the SDHL by utilizing her quickness around the opponent’s net. Vainikka will need to lean on this quickness even more to score in the PWHL when the game gets condensed by the smaller ice sheet.
Transitioning to the PWHL
When you watch a MoDo game, it’s hard not to get excited about Viivi Vainikka coming to the PWHL. However, several decorated European players who have scored a ton in the SDHL haven’t produced offensively in the PWHL immediately.
Vainikka was one of the smallest players in the 2026 draft, and her size is a real concern. There is also the question of transitioning her game from the larger ice sheet in Europe to the smaller sheet in North America. The smaller sheet ratchets up the speed, increasing the physicality and creating less time and space for a creative player like Vainikka. Vainikka has all of the tools to successfully adapt her game. It’s not a question of adding any new skills necessarily, but instead calibrating her current skills to the speed of the PWHL.
Beyond the on-ice challenges, Vainikka will be transitioning to life in a new country, on a new team, that doesn’t have any other Finnish players. It’s a lot of change for a 24 year-old to navigate. That said, if Vainikka and the Frost get it right, we might look back on 2026 draft and wonder how Vainikka fell to the end of the second round.
