Wild Preview: Mikko Koivu Jersey Card

This will likely be the preface to all of this year's Season Preview posts: 2020 is a different beast and requires adaptability; in my case, it means the joint posts with my "main/personal" blog will not be in the "player here/analysis there" format but rather the entire scope of the analysis will take place here and the player will have some sort of direct connection to what's written. Caveats: at this point, despite the season being set to start in Mid-January, several impact players haven't found a team yet and quite a few teams are currently above the salary cap, which means there is much maneuvering left to do.

GM Bill Guerin is reshaping the Minnesota Wild (player links go to other posts on my blog, team links are sponsored by Amazon): gone are Eric Staal, Alex Galchenyuk, Jason Zucker, Devan Dubnyk, Luke Kenin, Ryan Donato and even long-time captain Mikko Koivu, in are Cam Talbot, Marcus Johansson, Nick Bonino, Nick Bjugstad, and Dakota Mermis... so far.

What makes their odds look good:
Talbot isn't a bad goalie, he had a Vezina-worthy season in 2016-17 - far enough to doubt, close enough for Wild fans to believe. Kevin Fiala, Mats Zuccarello, Jared Spurgeon and Matt Dumba are top-unit players, Zach Parise and Ryan Suter still play top-unit minutes, Marco Rossi and Matthew Boldy look like solid prospects and Kirill Kaprizov actually has a fair shot at a Calder Trophy with what he accomplished last season in the KHL (first in goals, third in points, All-Star at age 22, one of a handful of point-per-game players in the entire league).

Question marks:
Other teams have used Johansson as a middle-six forward, the Wild may not have that luxury, and it remains to be seen if he can produce at top-line level. Does Suter start breaking down now taht he's in his mid-30s? Will Parise get injured again? How many young guys steal jobs from veterans with their play?

Outlook:
Minnesota is clearly in a rebuild; Guerin wants veterans he knows and trusts to not disrupt the process and perhaps help win a few games here and there, but this roster is the middle-point in a huge turnover, and it's unclear who will be there three years from now save for Rossi and Boldy. Still, in a top-heavy and shallow West Division, the Wild have a legitimate shot at a playoff spot; they'll battle for fourth place with the Arizona Coyotes.

Prediction:
Fifth in the West Division, a point or two behind Arizona.

There was a loud minority clamoring for Koivu's departure online these past few years, but I've never seen it reflected in the larger realm of Wild fans. Instead, most praised his effort level and two-way (although more and more on the defensive side as the years went on) play and saw him as a fine captain, just perhaps overpaid in the twilight of his career. Because it seems too commonplace in today's NHL, I wasn't exactly shocked when Guerin announced #9 would not even be re-signed as a fourth-line center, but found it sad that a player of his stature who had played his entire career with the team and been the first player in franchise history to hit the 1000 mark (and scoring the shootout winner in the milestone game) would not be allowed to retire in green and red. Here he is wearing the team's original white (home) uniform on card #HM-MK from Fleer's 2007-08 Hot Prospects set and Hot Materials subset, manufactured by Upper Deck:

It features a nice, dark green ame-worn jersey swatch.

I believe he will get along fine with John Tortorella and the Columbus Blue Jackets.

Mikko Koivu Autographed Card

Usually, on September 14th, I feature someone who shares the same birthday as me (and I do still have signed Tim Wallach cards that I haven't shown here); I could have also featured a signed card from my favourite player of all time, but I'm thinking I'll hold onto it for a while until I finish writing a book in which he'll be heavily featured.
So I thought I'd continue with my month-long theme of twin-posting with my "regular" blog - where I predicted the Minnesota Wild would finish seventh in the Central Division in 2019-20 - and mention their much-maligned captain, Mikko Koivu.

Koivu was the Wild's first-round pick (6th overall) in 2011, behind Ilya Kovalchuk, Jason Spezza, Alexandr Svitov, Stephen Weiss, and Stanislav Chistov; it's fair to say he's had a better career than three of them. And of the remaining first-rounders, only Mike Komisarek (7th, 735 NHL games, 2009 All-Star Game participant), Dan Hamhuis (12th, 1000+ NHL games), RJ Umberger and Colby Armstrong have had an impact on a line-up for more than just a couple of seasons, so he was the best remaining player with some pedigree.

In later rounds, only Jason Pominville (55th), has more career points, and only Mike Cammalleri (49th), Patrick Sharp (95th), Tomas Plekanec (71st) Ryan Clowe (175th), and Kevin Bieksa (151st) carry some kind of clout; the only goalies who played more than 150 games are Cristobal Huet (214th), Ray Emery (99th), Craig Anderson (73rd), Martin Gerber (232nd), Peter Budaj (63rd), Pascal Leclaire (8th) and Mike Smith (161st).

If there was a do-over, he'd be a top-5 pick, and possibly even a top-3.

He consistently gets a ton of Selke votes, finishing in the top-5 three times spread out throughout the course of his consistent career: fourth in 2008-09, third in 2016-17 and fifth in 2017-18. His points-per-game average has been at or above 0.66 (so two points per three games, which was top-line material for most seasons in his career) 10 times in 14 seasons, and above 0.80 five times.

He owns most Wild franchise record, and I'm particularly fond of the order in which they came: he became the biggest point producer in mid-March of 2014 and only surpassed the total games mark two years later in late February of 2016.

He's also captained Team Finland, with whom he is extremely decorated with silver (2006) and bronze (2010) Olympic medals to go with World Championship gold (2011, as captain), silver (2007 and 2016) and bronze (2006 and 2008), World Cup silver (2004), World Juniors silver (2001) and bronze (2002), and U-18 gold (2000) and silver (2001).

And yet, reading online hockey boards for the past decade - even more so in the last five years - shows a lot of displeasure with Koivu, usually associated with his cap hit and lack of goal-scoring (no mention, however, that he almost always tops the 30-assist mark, topping 40 five times with a high of 49 in 2009-10). His cap hit this season (and last) is set at $5.5M, a $1.2M cut from his previous deal, despite the fact that he is still an offensive contributor to his team, among the two top centres and among the four most effective forwards.

I get it - the same thing happened to his older brother Saku Koivu here in Montréal, with people complaining he wasn't a "true" #1 centre until he was replaced with Scott Gomez, then people started remembering him fondly again, some folks actually calling for a Hall Of Fame induction.

So, yeah, things will stabilize for the younger Koivu too. Here is is wearing the Wild's red (home) uniform on card #135 from Upper Deck's 2017-18 O-Pee-Chee set:

He signed it in blue sharpie in January, when his team was in town to face the Montréal Canadiens.

I like the design of this set, by the way, the way the border is a lighter shade of the rest of the picture, bot just a generic white or deliberately off-putting colour the way UD has a habit of doing for OPC.

Mikko Koivu Jersey card

I thought I had another Saku Koivu jersey card to feature, to coincide with the announcement of his retirement, but I can't seem to find it; I debated whether to instead feature another Montréal Canadiens first-round draft pick, or the player who I think will take his place as the clear #1 center, or another soon-to-be Finnish star.

But I went with another choice, Minnesota Wild captain Mikko Koivu, Saku's brother, and possibly Team Finland's next full-time captain (he did captain them to a gold medal at the 2011 World Championships). Mikko had kind words for Saku in the Star-Tribune.

Mikko Koivu was also a first-round pick, the sixth-overall player chosen in 2001, but he's more physically imposing than Saku at 6'3'' and 222 pounds. He also produces a little less offense in the points-per-game department, though he's the Wild's all-time leading scorer for the time being. One thing he has over Saku is recognition for his two-way play (he always gets Selke votes and even finished fourth in 2008-09) - and he's much more disciplined, particularly in the offensive zone.

The Wild now have a powerhouse team that can take on any other team in the league and contend for the Stanley Cup for at least the next three years, in part because Koivu and Zach Parise are exactly on the same talent and effort levels in the #1 and #2 center spots, and both are proven leaders who have worn the 'C' on their chests and who have shown they were good choices for it.

What started out as a boring, middle-state expansion team has grown into a team that's hard not to respect and even admire (unless you're a fan of the natural rivals Chicago Blackhawks, I guess), and the transformation happened with Koivu at the helm of that dressing room, under his watch. And there's a reason why management chose to retain him while they added and changed the talent around him: he's that good.

And so here's a card from Upper Deck's 2013-14 SP Game-Used Edition set (card #AF-MK of the Authentic Fabrics sub-set), showing him with the Wild's white (away) uniform, with a big green swatch: