Saku Koivu
Saku Koivu
Saku Antero Koivuis a Finnish former professional ice hockey player who played in the National Hockey League. He began his NHL career with the Montreal Canadiens in 1995–96 after three seasons with TPS of the Finnish SM-liiga. Koivu served as the Canadiens' captain for ten of his 14 years with the club, which makes him the longest captaincy tenure in team history, tied with Jean Béliveau. Koivu was the first European player to captain the Montreal Canadiens...
NationalityFinnish
ProfessionHockey Player
Date of Birth23 November 1974
CityTurku, Finland
CountryFinland
We didn't know what to expect from him or what would happen. Huey surprised a lot of people and his teammates as well. He's been tremendous for us.
The thing that has surprised me is his consistency. As a rookie, it's tough to maintain your level of play throughout the year and he's played well from day one. Since the Olympic break, he's gotten more ice time and he's really taken advantage of that. I think the work he did early in the season is paying off.
I think for Finns, it's probably, maybe, the biggest game ever. Not just that we're playing in the gold-medal game in the Olympics, but we all know the importance of playing against Sweden.
You know it's going to be a great atmosphere, the fans are going to be really crazy, there's no doubt about that. Hopefully we can get that energy there that we need, but sometimes there's a chance that you want to do too much so I think we've got to still realize there's a long way to go and what we're doing right now well, to keep doing those things and then just go and fight for a win.
We just didn't show up in the first period,
We can't afford to go lose two, three in a row. We've got to keep climbing and getting wins.
Obviously, that off-the-ice battle I went through, plus injuries I came back from, I always felt the fans are really knowledgeable there and respected and appreciated guys that gave whatever they had and guys that fought through things.
Right now, it seems that we're doing good things, the puck is bouncing for us and we're getting breaks like I did at the end of the game.
I felt like an outsider. The only time you get to really know guys is on the ice, and I couldn't be there.
What we are hoping is that we've had to battle till the end and really maintain our focus here. I think the momentum is going for us right now, and hopefully we can bring it to the playoffs.
When you have a core group of young players as we do, the future looks bright.
Each of their units got the goals, so they're effective.
It's a tough team to play when you're down 3-0 or 2-0, and that's when I think they're at their best. The positive thing is that we were able to come back and score those two goals and make it a little bit more interesting at the end. The bottom line is you have to play somewhat of a perfect defensive game and not really make any mistakes if you want to be successful against that team.
They want to show they belong in this league, and it drives us older guys to work harder to keep our spots.