“We liked him as a player, regardless of his last name,” amateur scouting co-director Nick Bobrov says after Habs pick former captain’s son.
Aatos Koivu plans to make a name for himself with the Canadiens.
That might be difficult since his father, Saku, used to be captain of the Canadiens and was one of the most popular players in Montreal.
On Saturday, the Canadiens selected the younger Koivu in the third round (70th overall) at the NHL Draft in Las Vegas.
Last season, the 6-foot, 170-pound centre posted 9-13-22 totals in 20 games with the TPS U18 team in Finland before moving up to the U20 team, where he had 16-15-31 totals in 28 games. Koivu, who turned 18 on June 22, also played four games with the TPS team in the Finnish Elite League without registering a point.
Koivu was only 3 when his father left the Canadiens after 13 seasons and signed with the Anaheim Ducks as a free agent on July 8, 2009. His only real memories of Montreal are of the Bell Centre and the family’s old home on Nuns’ Island.
“I remember a lot with the Ducks,” Koivu said during a Zoom conference from Finland on Saturday after getting drafted. “I mean, I went to school back in California and I remember a lot (from Anaheim, where his father played for five seasons). Not too much from Montreal.”
Montreal fans will be excited to see the name Koivu on the back of a Canadiens sweater again, which could put more pressure on Aatos. But he’s not concerned about that.
“I don’t think it’s going to be tougher in any way because I think I can kind of make a name for myself just playing the way I can play and just being myself and being the best player possible,” he said. “Of course, people are going to know who my father is and where he played and when. It’s always going to be that way, definitely in Montreal, and I don’t think it’s a bad thing and I think I can just kind of make a name for myself there as well. It’s not going to be any different than any other players.”
It will be, but Aatos is used to handling the pressure of having Koivu on the back of his sweater in his home country.
“I didn’t really feel too much pressure,” he said. “Of course, a lot of people knew who my dad was and where he played. Definitely from the opponents I heard a lot from it and they were always yelling about my dad. But it’s kind of just something that I got used to and it doesn’t really bother me any more. … It pushed me to want to become a good player myself and not just be Saku’s son. Make a name for myself.”
Nick Bobrov, the Canadiens’ co-director of amateur scouting along with Martin Lapointe, believes the young Koivu can do that.
“We liked him as a player, regardless of his last name, so we’ll start with that,” Bobrov told reporters in Las Vegas after the seven-round draft was over. “He’s a late-blooming kid. He started playing at U18 level and then everything came really fast at him. U20, national team, TPS, pro games in Liiga. So for a kid who was smaller just about a year ago and grew quickly, there’s a lot of growth potential.
“Clearly, his dad taught him very well,” Bobrov added. “His habits are already pro. But the body needs to develop and our job is to project and project the physique and project where the player can get to in five years. So we felt that he’s just scratching the surface and there’s a lot more to go. Listen, he’s been in a household where pressure was pretty common and the type of person his dad is and the family, this kid knows what it’s all about and we felt he’d be comfortable in that environment and he was a pretty easy pick for us.”
Koivu decided not to attend the draft in Las Vegas after speaking with his father and his agent. They decided together it was better for him to stay home in Finland, where he could continue his summer training instead of flying back and forth. He isn’t planning to attend the Canadiens’ development camp, which starts Tuesday in Brossard, for the same reason.
Koivu watched the draft on TV with his family, but couldn’t look at the screen when it came time for the Canadiens to make the 70th overall pick and he didn’t hear his name get announced.
“But my mom started to yell and she jumped and she was like: ‘Oh, my God! Oh, my God!’” Koivu said. “And then I saw my name on the TV and then my dad jumped as well. He was super-happy.”
Koivu said it’s an “unreal feeling” to now be part of the team his father used to play for, adding: “I’m super-happy. I can’t find the words right now to describe what I’m feeling.”