Koskinen to get the start in Colorado
Lanky Finn with ice-cool demeanour emerges as NHL’s hottest goaltender
Oilers goalie Mikko Koskinen’s playful nickname back in Finland was “three metres” because that’s how tall he looks on skates as he guards the net.
But if you’re trying to get the hottest goaltender in the NHL to talk about himself, you might get three inches of quotes.
Koskinen has the second best goals against average (2.06), third best save percentage (. 929) and only Marc-Andre Fleury of the Golden Knights has more shutouts (five) than Koskinen’s three among goalies who have played at least eight games.
Koskinen has started 13 games and played in 14 of the Oilers first 30 games.
He’s so even keeled, he would probably only shrug if somebody slashed his tires. He probably didn’t even break into a smile when the Oilers gave him a princely $2.5 million during the spring to return to the NHL after seven years away.
Koskinen will show some emotion, but it’s behind closed doors.
“He’ll get mad playing cards (on the team charter),” said defenceman Matt Benning.
“I’m not very good at the games. I lose all the time,” said the 30-year-old Koskinen.
Maybe he loses at cards, which seems crazy with his poker face, but he doesn’t lose much at the rink. He’s 9-3-1, winning all six of his starts at Rogers Place with a .972 save percentage.
He’ll get the start in Denver on Tuesday against the Avalanche because coach Ken Hitchcock knows goalies coming off shutouts need to get back in there.
Hitchcock did his homework on Koskinen as soon as he took the job. He contacted his former Dallas defenceman Sergei Zubov and the St. Petersburg (KHL) assistant coach raved about him.
“Zubie said you’re never going to have a problem with him preparation-wise or analyzing his own performance. He said he’ll
I don’t really care about the number. The only thing that I care about is the wins. That’s the only thing to worry about.
be way harder on himself than you can ever be,” said Hitchcock. “Mikko is a tough guy. He’s pushing the goalie coach, he’s pushing me. He lets go of the game right away and wants to know the details of what he needs to do to get better. He’s a pro’s pro.”
Here’s what we know about Koskinen. He’s 6-foot-7 in bare feet. He’s rail-thin, about 205 pounds. He says he likes to watch House of Cards on Netflix. He has a wife who was schooled in the UK and a 14-month old son named Lucas.
He gets along famously with his goaltending partner Cam Talbot, who had started 140 of 162 Oilers games the past two seasons, and the feeling is mutual.
Koskinen, an unrestricted free agent next July, like Talbot, took major heat early in training camp when he wasn’t stopping nearly enough pucks and calmly said he would get better after being over in Europe with the bigger ice sheets and fewer shots and screens to worry about.
It’s still a small sample size, but he’s very good along the ice with his long legs, he’s got the wingspan of a pterodactyl, and makes saves to keep his team in the game. He also makes saves he probably shouldn’t. At times his glove hand can be like a frying pan, like so many NHL goalies today who don’t catch pucks with the flash of Grant Fuhr. But he still makes lots of saves with his mitt.
Statistically, only fellow Finn Pekka Rinne (1.96) has a better goals-against average and only Rinne and Jaro Halak (. 930) have higher save percentages. Koskinen shrugs it off.
“I don’t really care about the number. The only thing that I care about is the wins. That’s the only thing to worry about,” he said.
Yeah, but how about those three shutouts in six home games?
“That’s three wins. Doesn’t matter, 6-5 or 5-0. A win is a win. That’s why we’re here,” said Koskinen.
Hitchcock likes having two good goalies rather than one stud in net.
“You can’t play a one-goalie system in the West. There’s too much travel, too many late nights,” said Hitchcock.
“For me, it’s always been a feel. We’re going to reward Kosky for the shutout. But, I really believe in a rhythm, that there has to be a defined gap (in starts) for your second guy. I don’t think you can go any longer than eight or nine days without the other guy playing.”
Hitchcock has ridden one guy before and it’s backfired. Not just once, but twice. One time was in Dallas where he let Kari Lehtonen watch Ben Bishop for too long, then Bishop went down and it cost the Stars the playoffs.
“I left a guy for almost four weeks and the starter got hurt. I put him in, he had a tough go, and we had a tough go. I’m not going to make that mistake again,” he said.