Montreal Canadiens: Joni Ikonen Injured Again as Once Promising Career Derailed Again

The Montreal Canadiens once had high hopes for prospect Joni Ikonen. Too bad he just can’t step on the ice without being injured.

The Montreal Canadiens have gathered some impressive talent form Finland over the past few years. They featured a “Finnish Line” for several games this past season when Jesperi Kotkaniemi was between Artturi Lehkonen and Joel Armia.

Otto Leskinen was signed a year ago and Jesse Ylonen inked his entry-level contract in February. The pair will be in Laval with the Rocket to begin the 2020-21 season (whenever that’ll be).

ANother talented young Finnish player was supposed to be part of this crew but he simply can’t stay healthy.

Joni Ikonen was a promising prospect when he was selected with the 58th overall pick in the 2017 NHL Draft. He had played the previous season in Sweden’s top Junior league where he scored 41 points in 40 games, including 22 goals. The right shooting centre was also great at the World Under-18 Tournament, scoring eight points in seven contests for Finland.

The year after being drafted by the Habs, Ikonen played his first full pro season. He didn’t exactly light up the scoresheet, scoring four goals and 14 points in 52 games but not many teenagers are scoring phenoms in European pro leagues.

Ikonen was off to an impressive start to his 2018-19 campaign. He had five goals and ten points in just 14 games, but then missed the rest of the season with a knee injury. He scored more goals in just 14 games in his second Liiga season than he did over a full schedule as a rookie. Clearly, he had taken a step forward, but it has been nothing but setbacks since then.

After missing the remainder of that 2018-19 season, Ikonen suffered another knee injury just over a year ago that knocked him out of the lineup for the entire 2019-20 season.

He signed with a new team for the upcoming season, but his luck hasn’t changed with Ilves. With the team kicking off its schedule this weekend, it was announced that Ikonen will be out long term once again.

This makes it three seasons in a row that Ikonen has suffered a major injury. Unfortunately, a talented and, at one time, a promising prospect has just missed far too much crucial development time to reach his potential. He missed a lot of time as a 19 year old, didn’t play a single game of hockey when he was 20 and is not going to miss significant time as a 21 year old.

It will soon be two full years since the young man has played a hockey game. At one time, there was a chance Ikonen could have developed into a smart, two-way centre who could score goals. Now, he’ll be lucky if he just gets back on the ice.