Islanders prospect puts up a seasons worth of penalties in one game

Aatu Räty is the top prospect in the New York Islanders pipeline. Drafted in the second round (thanks to the Nick Leddy trade to Detroit), Räty fell to the Islanders in the latter half of the 2021 second round.

Playing in his native Finland, Räty had an impressive season after a slow start. Being sent out on loan (in a sort of trade) to Jukuirt from Kärpät, Räty flourished with 40 points in 41 games with his new club.

The one critique you could place on Räty's season was his 34 penalty minutes on the year (32 with Jukurit and 2 with Kärpät). That ranks him 68th in the league. That lack of discipline showed up in game three of Jukurit's opening-round series of the Liiga playoffs.

New York Islanders prospect puts up a seasons worth of penalties in one game

It started at 4:29 of the first period. Räty lines up KooKoo's Ville Meskanen who's playing the puck along the boards. Only thing is that Meskanen has his back turned to Räty and has no idea what's about to happen.

Instead of letting up, Räty drives through him and tosses Meskanen into the boards head first. It's not a good check and in Liiga rules that earns him 12 minutes of penalty time.

That's just not good. That's a penalty in any league. The Isles prospect can't be taking this type of penalty. His team was down 2-0 in their series and this gifted the opponent a massive opportunity. Thankfully, KooKoo couldn't convert.

But Räty wasn't done going to the box in this one.

Fast-forward to the 15:35 mark of the second period. Jukurit goes up 1-0 with Aatu standing in front of the KooKoo keeper to take his eyes away. But instead of going to celebrate with his teammates, Aatu turns around and raises his hands in front of the KooKoo keeper.

There isn't much there and apparently, Nick Malik (the KooKoo goalie who IS Marek Malik's son) was chirping the Jukurit players ahead of the game. But still, Räty can't be doing this. That earned him a 10-minute penalty for unsportsmanlike conduct and because Räty had already served a 10-minute misconduct penalty in the game he was immediately expelled from the game.

So that 10-minute penalty turned into a 20-minute penalty. Add the first 10-minute penalty he got in the game and the 2-minute minor that accompanied it and Räty finished with a whopping total of 32 penalty minutes. The exact same number of PIMs he earned all year long.

Ouch.

The kid clearly has some fire in his belly, but he's going to have to learn how to control that as he continues his career. It's fine to play on an edge but you want to fall on the right side of that edge.