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Utah announced today defenseman Juuso Välimäki underwent surgery to repair a torn ACL and will need eight to nine months for recovery. As a result, the 26-year-old’s season is over. He’ll also miss the first one to two months of the 2025-26 campaign.
It’s a brutal end to a forgettable season for the Finnish defenseman. He hasn’t been on the NHL roster since Feb. 24, when he cleared waivers and was subsequently sent to AHL Tucson for his first minor-league assignment since the 2021-22 campaign. Välimäki sustained the ACL tear in his first game with Tucson on Feb. 28.
While the 2017 first-rounder has finally emerged as a fringe top-four option on the Coyotes’ blue line before the team was sold and moved operations to Salt Lake City, he’s tumbled down the depth chart in Utah despite early-season injuries to Sean Durzi and John Marino creating additional opportunities for depth players for much of the campaign. Touted as an offensive defenseman, the 6’2″ lefty has just 2-3–5 in 43 NHL showings this year. That’s down considerably from the heights of his 34-point campaign in 78 games for Arizona two years ago, when he featured heavily on their power play and led Coyotes defenders with 30 assists (19 EV, 11 PP).
Välimäki’s role this season was naturally going to decrease with their offseason pickups of Marino, Ian Cole, and Mikhail Sergachev, and his role was further reduced when Utah acquired (and now extended) countryman Olli Määttä early in the season. Not being available during training camp next season also doesn’t bode well for his hopes of re-emerging as a regular. Signed through next year at a $2MM cap hit, Välimäki is already the seventh defenseman under contract on a one-way deal next year after the Club recently extended Määttä and Cole. While veterans Nick DeSimone and Robert Bortuzzo are pending UFAs and questionable to return, they’ve also got 2022 first-rounder Maveric Lamoureux in the system who should be pushing for an opening-night roster spot after skating in 15 games earlier this year.
Thus, Välimäki may not have an NHL job waiting for him when he returns to health next year. He costs $850K against Utah’s cap when buried in the minors. He’s destined for unrestricted free agency when his deal expires in 2026 and, save for an unexpected resurgence in 2025-26, won’t be re-signing unless he desires a minor-league role.
More concerning is the Finn’s history with ACL tears and lower-body issues. He missed significant chunks of his early development in the Flames organization, including the first half of the 2018-19 campaign with a lower-body injury and all of the 2019-20 season after undergoing ACL surgery during training camp. He’s managed to stay mostly healthy since then, though. It’s not known whether the tears occurred in the same knee.
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