Montreal Canadiens: Jesperi Kotkaniemi Hitting Stride After Injury
The Montreal Canadiens were fortunate to get Jesperi Kotkaniemi back from injury after the Christmas break. He has played two of his best games of the season since returning from injury.
The Montreal Canadiens drafted Jesperi Kotkaniemi with the third overall pick in the 2018 NHL Draft. He was immediately regarded as a longer-term type of prospect who is tall, but a bit scrawny, one of the younger players in his draft and thus would need some time to develop into a full time NHL player.
However, Kotkaniemi had other plans it would seem. He played well enough in his first NHL training camp that he made the opening night roster for the 2018-19 Montreal Canadiens. There was no guarantee that he would stick on the roster for the entire season, but he continued to play well early in the season and the Habs management team had no choice but to keep him.
There was some debate early on that he could be sent back to Finland to play in Liiga after a handful of games with the Habs. This is what happened with Mikhail Sergachev just two years earlier so it seemed like a possibility. There was also some talk he could be made available to play for Finland at that year’s World Juniors.
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However, Kotkaniemi was simply too valuable for them to allow him to leave their roster for any length of time. He played most of the year as the third line center and finished his rookie season with 11 goals and 23 assists for 34 points in 79 games.
The native of Pori, Finland bulked up last summer and appeared poised to take on a more offensive role for the Habs. He played well at camp and scored two goals in the Habs first three games, the first two goals on the road in his career after being shutout as a rookie.
It looked like he could be primed for a much bigger offensive season as a sophomore but that hasn’t been the case. Kotkaniemi was injured on December 5th in a battle along the boards with Nikita Zadorov of the Colorado Avalanche. It was early in Kotkaniemi’s 22nd game of the year but he had just three goals and five points to that point.
The 19 year old center finally returned from his injury following the Christmas break and he made an immediate impact. Kotkaniemi opened the scoring against the Tampa Bay Lightning with a nifty wrist shot around a defender that found the back of the net. He also breathed a little life into the Habs in the third period last night against the Florida Panthers. He won a loose puck in front of the Panthers goal and fired a shot into the back of the net to make it 6-4 and inject some life into the Habs for the remainder of the game.
Not only did he score the two goals, he looked really confident with the puck, stick-handling around several defenders while finding open ice and making pinpoint passes to teammates. With all due respect to Jordan Weal and Nick Cousins, they aren’t the most offensively gifted linemates that Kotkaniemi will ever have in his career and they haven’t been able to convert the chances created by Kotkaniemi.
Things will be different when Jonathan Drouin, Joel Armia and Paul Byron return from injury. With the top line of Tomas Tatar, Phillip Danault and Brendan Gallagher locked in stone and Max Domi finding chemistry with Artturi Lehkonen and Nick Suzuki on his wings, it’s entirely possible Kotkaniemi will have Drouin and Armia on his wings in the future.
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Before his injury, there were some Habs fans calling for the team to send Kotkaniemi to the World Juniors to regain his confidence. Somehow, he has been able to find his confidence while injured for three weeks. With goals in consecutive games, he could be on the verge of a lengthy hot streak – if only he could find a winger or two that can put the puck in the net.