Saku Koivu has made his mark on the Montreal Canadiens’ history, but he hasn’t done enough to see his number 11 go up to the rafters. Still, he did enough for TPS Turku in Finland for the SM-Liiga team to announce that it will retire his number on October 24.
Koivu was playing for TPS Turku when the Canadiens drafted him in 1993. In his first season with the Finnish side, he put up only 10 points in 47 games, but his progression in year two was spectacular. In the 1993-94 campaign, fresh off being drafted, he put up 53 points in 47 games before making another formidable jump in his final year with 74 points in 45 games.
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He made the jump to the NHL at the start of the 1995-96 season and immediately made an impact with the Canadiens, putting up 45 points in 82 games in his rookie season. When the NHL lost a season to a lockout in 2004-05, Koivu headed back home and skated in 20 games for TP Turku, scoring 16 points.
In 13 seasons with the Habs, Koivu put up a total of 641 points in 792 games before joining the Anaheim Ducks as a free agent in the 2009 offseason. That summer, then Montreal GM Bob Gainey decided to give the Habs a facelift ahead of their centennial year, bringing in Scott Gomez, Mike Cammalleri, and Brian Gionta, to name a few.
More than the points he put up, though, Koivu will always be remembered in Montreal for his courage in the face of adversity. Six years into his NHL career, he was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, and after winning that battle, he returned to the ice on April 9, 2002 and was given an ovation for the ages by the Canadiens faithful.
You can see Koivu learn about his number retirement in a TPS Turku social media post, and even if you don’t speak Finnish, it’s easy to see how much the decision meant to the former Canadiens captain. The former Hab may have more good news in the future if son Aatos Koivu, who was drafted 70th overall by the Canadiens at the 2024 draft, makes the NHL.
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