VANCOUVER -- Aku Koskenvuo played only 17 games as a sophomore at Harvard University last season, so it might be hard to envision the 21-year-old goalie playing a significant role in the Vancouver Canucks crease anytime soon.
However, recent history and some strength and style similarities to another Canucks puck-stopping prospect mean it shouldn’t be ruled out.
It would have been difficult two years ago to predict that Arturs Silovs, who split 20 games between the American Hockey League and ECHL as a 21-year-old, would become Vancouver’s starting goalie for the 2024 Stanley Cup Playoffs.
“They have a lot of similarities in size, athleticism, speed and power,” Canucks goaltending development coach Marko Torenius said about Silovs and Koskenvuo. “There's a lot of things.”
Those similarities include not getting a lot of playing time at the age of 21.
After only playing two games at Harvard as a freshman in 2022-23, Koskenvuo split starts with senior Derek Mullahy last season and was 5-6-4 with a 2.95 goals-against average, .910 save percentage and two shutouts, and appears set to become Harvard’s No. 1 goalie this season.
“It's a really important season coming for him,” Torenius said. “He's a little bit under the radar but if he is able to get a little more game experience, I think he will also gain some confidence, and you can start to see who he really is.”
Vancouver selected Koskenvuo in the fifth round (No. 137) of the 2021 NHL Draft; that made him the second goalie after Silovs, taken in the sixth round (No. 156) of the 2019 NHL Draft, chosen by the Canucks after Ian Clark rejoined them as a goalie coach (and now director of goaltending) following seven seasons with the Columbus Blue Jackets. Six of the seven goalies drafted during Clark’s time in Columbus have played at least one game in the NHL, and Koskenvuo excels at some of the seven key attributes Clark looks for.
“He hits 10 out of 10 on a few of them,” Clark said. “He has prototypical size (6-foot-4) and a prototypical body for the goaltending position, and the athleticism and compete and all those things I'm always looking for.”
Koskenvuo has been working to put all those elements together in a more controlled manner by learning the Canucks system for their goalies.
“How I play the game [is] that I play most of the situations the same way to make the game more systematic, so there are less swings in performance,” Koskenvuo said. “How fast your head snaps, where your eyes go, how your blades are on the post. Very small stuff, but it's small details that make the big picture, so they're very important, and I think it has improved a lot.”
NCAA rules prevent Torenius from going on the ice with Koskenvuo during the season, but he still flew to Boston once, and they talk every few weeks, reviewing his games on video and sending clips of Canucks No. 1 Thatcher Demko.
“He's starting to understand less is more,” Torenius said. “He can trust his body, be more compact. He doesn't need to be all over the place. He's one of those wild horses we have, and it's a long road to get those guys in balance.”
It’s a process Demko went through, too, and Koskenvuo said he has gotten a lot out of watching video of him.
“I tried to pick up on the fundamentals of Demko's game and see how I could translate them into my game and so far, it's helping,” Koskenvuo said. “I like how simple his game is, how he's systematic, he’s very controlled but at the end of the day when the situation needs it, he can break off that and make big saves.”
