One of Frölunda’s most interesting acquisitions for the 2014–15 season is young Finnish talent Artturi Lehkonen. The 19-year-old winger had a tough start to the season after getting glandular fever late in the summer, but he's fought through it and is now concentrating on game 2 of the quarter-finals against IFK Helsinki.

By Efraim Larsson

GOTHENBURG – As a 15-year-old kid, Artturi Lehkonen made his first appearance on a Finnish national junior team. Since then he has won a bronze medal at the U18 World Championship in 2012 and gold medal at the U20 World Juniors in 2014, beating arch-rival Sweden in the gold medal game on their home ice in Malmö, Sweden. Now, Lehkonen is at home on Swedish ice.

With 166 points (85 goals + 81 assists) in 102 games in the Finnish junior leagues, his share of good results in the national teams (29 points in 31 games in U17, U18 and U20) and his 54 points (23+31) in 96 games in the Finnish Liiga, it’s not difficult to understand the hype in Gothenburg about this youngster when the news about his transfer to Frolunda was announced.

In the middle of training camp, however, Lehkonen unfortunately contracted glandular fever and was out of action for a while. About the tough start to the season he said: “Yeah, I had a tough summer and had a lot of troubles at the beginning of the season. But as long as we’ve played of the season right now I don’t think it has affected me too much. Our coaches let me have some time to get back into shape and the fact that they believe in me and have given me a lot of ice time have got me back into my peak physical form.”

In the Champions Hockey League you’re tied for fifth in Frölunda’s point scoring with 6 points (2 goals + 4 assists) in eight games and in the SHL you’ve got 11 points (4+7) in 28 games, which is enough for the eighth on the team. What do you think about your individual play so far this season?

I had a pretty good start in the SHL (7 points in the first 10 games) but haven’t found the score sheet for a long time now (nine straight games without a point), which is really frustrating of course. But I just have to keep working and play as well as I can and the points will start to come again.

Despite losing three games in a row, you’re still the second-best team in the league. What do you think is the reason to that you are one of the best teams in the SHL this year?

I think that we have a really good team with a lot of skilled players at every position on the ice and we are working hard every day and doing our best. I've just got to say that we have two great goalies as well, and they have won a few points for us so far.

But as good as you are offensively, you’ve had some problems protecting leads late in games and we've seen you drop some points by giving up late goals. Do you have any thoughts of why and how this happens?

To be honest, I think that we just haven’t been mature enough, and that has cost us several times as you say. But those games have taught us that we need to concentrate and be more vigilant at the end of the games when we have the lead and we can’t think we’ve won before it's over. A game is 60 minutes and you always have to work until the final horn, especially in a tight league like the SHL where every team can beat each other.

So, on Tuesday it’s time for the second quarter-final game against IFK Helsinki. You lost the first game 2–1. What was your feeling about the first game?

They (HIFK) surprised us early in the game and they got a good flow with that early goal (1–0 just 34 seconds into the game) and could ride a bit on it, even though we tied it in the same period. I don’t think we played one of our best games this season, and of course it's costly when you don’t play your best against a skilled team like HIFK.

So what can we expect from you in the second game in Gothenburg?

At first I think we just have to find a way to bounce back from our four straight losses (three SHL and one CHL) with a win, obviously. Before this we hadn’t lost two games in a row on all season and now we have four straight all of a sudden, but things can turn quickly in this game. Our biggest problem recently has been goal-scoring and we just have to continue playing our game and make the scoring chances count when we get them.

You know a lot of the guys in both Helsinki and Tappara Tampere after your years in Liiga and the Finnish Junior National Teams, am I right?

Yes, I know a lot of the younger players and some of them are good friends of mine. When you live in Sweden and everything that goes with that, of course it's very fun to both play against them and meet them afterwards.

You were part of the Finnish U20 team that took the gold medal in last year’s World Juniors. How much are you looking forward to going to Canada with hopes of doing it again this winter?

Last year was unreal and an amazing experience. I really hope that we can do the same thing this year!