Kasimir Kaskisuo

Kasimir Kaskisuo grew up in Vantaa, Finland, and has spent more than a decade navigating professional hockey across multiple continents and leagues. The 6'3", 203-pound left-catching goaltender has appeared in two NHL games, going 0-1 with a 4.78 GAA, with stints that included time with the Toronto Maple Leafs and Nashville Predators organizations. He has also played in the Swedish Hockey League with Leksands IF and, most recently, with Kiekko-Pojat in Finland's Mestis league.

InGoal Magazine has covered Kasimir Kaskisuo in two podcast appearances. ^{[1] [2]}

In a 2025 conversation recorded in Montreal ^[2], Kaskisuo described the reality of his situation heading into a third consecutive December without a contract: "It's taken two steps back. So, yeah, just trying to just trying to be ready and hopeful and positive." He acknowledged the mental challenge of navigating repeated near-misses in contract negotiations, noting, "multiple times these last couple of years, it's not done until it's done."

On staying prepared without a team, Kaskisuo described organizing his own skates in Minnesota with other free agents, often building the drills himself and giving each session a specific focus. "Last week, I was trying to play a little bit more out than I normally would and just play around with that and try to always have some kind of theme, something you wanna work on," he said. He also uses Sense Arena virtual reality almost daily, including a session he took directly onto the ice when no shooters were available. "I walked out of the rink feeling like I had just had a normal skate," he said of that experience.

For pregame preparation on game days, Kaskisuo described using Sense Arena's NHL shot-from-the-slot drill as part of his final routine before getting dressed. "When I do that and then we go on for warm up skate, I just feels like I've seen 100 shots. I don't start from from zero," he said.

Kaskisuo has given thought to the technical side of his position, including his glove hand movement. He traced the origins of his approach to older Finnish goalies — citing Kiprusoff, Backstrom, and Pekka Rinne, with whom he overlapped in Nashville — describing a pre-shot loading motion that starts near the chest and moves toward the shoulder, giving the hand momentum to either continue upward on a high shot or snap downward on a low one. "For me, the biggest help for me is just having that motion and then just continue, like if it's a low shot, just not really trying to be accurate with it. You kind of just snap your glove down," he said.

On self-evaluation, Kaskisuo said his framework for reviewing goals against comes from time spent in Toronto with goalie coach Pierre O'Greco, who broke down positioning into five fundamentals — line, squareness, depth, and related elements. "If we'd look at a goal against, I one of those things I wasn't doing," he said.

Equipment has been another area of focus. During a visit to Warrior in Montreal, Kaskisuo described switching from a Bauer large pad to a Warrior 33+1.5 — a smaller size — after concluding that years of playing in oversized pads had limited his movement. "Once I put the 33 plus one and a half Warriors on, I've never moved better," he said, adding, "Looking back, I feel like I've pinched my ability to skate for the last eight years." He also described the Warrior catching glove's pocket-to-cuff proportion as a key factor, saying the construction puts more material where the pocket is rather than in the cuff.

Kaskisuo has also done goaltending coaching work. He described his approach: "My favorite thing to tell to a goalie is like, why why are you doing that? ... Everything should have a purpose and why you do that." He said he sees goalie coaching as a possible long-term path: "I think I would love to be part of that team environment and be part of goaltending and be a goalie coach."