Emmitt Finnie is nearly halfway through his first campaign as an NHLer with the Detroit Red Wings. Bursting onto the scene during the Red Wings' preseason, the rookie had played 13 total AHL games after finishing a strong career in the WHL with 37 goals and 47 assists to total out 84 points in 55 games.
He tacked on another goal and four assists in 10 regular season games with Grand Rapids before they were swept out of the Calder Cup Playoffs.
Emmitt Finnie has been making noise all year
Coming out of prospect development camp, he caught the eye of the Red Wings’ top brass. But it wasn’t just the brass. So did his teammates and coaches, and later the reporters who kept attending practices and coming away with notes on some former seventh-round pick.
Even when three of the Red Wings' first-round draft picks who would play in the NHL this season were in the same games. Head Coach Todd McLellan pointed him out for his poise and awareness in-game during the Red Wings’ Sept. 25 preseason matchup against the Buffalo Sabres.
When the season finally did begin, Finnie had passed up 2022 eighth-overall pick Marco Kasper and was playing on the first line with Lucas Raymond and Dylan Larkin. A spot he’s stayed in for pretty much the entire season so far. Finnie has 16 points (8 goals, 8 assists) in 36 games for the Red Wings, with three of those goals coming in the last 10.
At the moment, Finnie sits with a plus-2 rating on the season, and has seen his playing time increase as the season goes on. Finnie has been playing on the power play with the second unit in more recent weeks, and rotates in on the penalty kill, too. Two of Finnie’s three power play goals have come in the last two weeks, with the young forward breaking something of a scoring drought.
The 6’1” Lethbridge native has been doing a lot of the dirty work with puck retrieval and providing the first line with some much-needed grit and physicality (59 hits). In an interview with The Hockey News earlier this year, Finnie revealed he models his game after current LA Kings winger Adrian Kempe. The Swedish winger is known for his hard-nosed style and has 13 goals and 17 assists so far this season.
Emmitt Finnie has a bright path ahead of him
In recent years, the Red Wings have seen several young players take off on the top line, with the aforementioned Raymond and Kasper both playing a good amount of their rookie campaigns there.
In 2021-22, Raymond had 23 goals and 34 assists in his debut season, playing on a line with Larkin and Tyler Bertuzzi. Kasper, who split time between centering the second and the wing on the first line last year, had 19 goals and 18 assists through 77 games.
Finnie is currently tied for fourth place amongst rookie goal scorers, and if he continues his current pace projects to have around the same production as Kasper, with 18 goals and 18 assists. That also just about matches up with Kempe, who had 16 goals and 21 assists in 2017-18, which was his first full NHL season.
It’s not often that a potential playoff contender has a rookie on their top line, much less one from the seventh round who can’t even legally drink yet (in the United States). But the Red Wings are making it work. Or rather, Emmitt Finnie is making it work.