Justus Kainulainen

Justus Kainulainen (born 22 February 1999) is a Finnish floorball player and national team member. He is a 2024 world champion, two-time Finnish champion, and was named the world's best floorball player in 2024. He has been playing in the Finnish and Swiss top leagues since 2015.

Club career Kainulainen began his professional floorball career in 2015 with the club LASB, where his older brother Rasmus also played. In his very first season, the team was promoted to the Finnish top league. He played two more seasons in the league with the club before transferring to Oilers in 2018.

His brother followed him to the new team a year later. In the 2020–21 season, they reached the finals with Oilers. In the 2023–24 campaign, Kainulainen was the top scorer of the playoffs and led the team as a captain to their first championship title in 18 years. In the decisive seventh game of the final series, he scored three goals, the last being the game-winner. As a result, he was named the season's most valuable player and the sportsman of the city of Espoo. In the following season, they successfully defended the title, although Kainulainen did not play in the final match due to injury.

Ahead of the 2025/2026 season, he transferred to Zug United, the reigning two-time champions of the Swiss Unihockey Prime League. However, the team fell short of defending their title, finishing in second place.

International career Kainulainen represented Finland at the 2017 Under-19 World Championships, where he led the Finnish team to a successful title defense as the tournament's top scorer. In the final match, he scored four goals and assisted another. He won his first world title at the 2024 championship, where, as the team’s top scorer, he helped overturn a 0–4 deficit in the medal match with two goals and an assist.

Year Team Event Result 2017 Finland U-19 WFC U-19 2020 Finland WFC 2022 Finland WG 2022 Finland WFC 2024 Finland WFC

Awards In 2024, Kainulainen was named the world's best floorball player in a Innebandymagazinet Award. For the 2024/2025 season, he won the inaugural Player of the Year award presented by the International Floorball Federation.

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