Kotkaniemi eager for more after passing first milestone with Canadiens

BOSTON -- Jesperi Kotkaniemi shrugged off the milestone.

"I think it's not that big a deal," he said. "It's just another game."
But that's not quite right. The 10th game of a player's rookie season in the NHL is a big deal, for him and for his team, which must make a crucial decision before that game: To keep him or send him elsewhere. If the team opts to keep him, as the Montreal Canadiens did with the No. 3 pick in the 2018 NHL Draft, it uses up the first season of his entry-level contract.
Keeping Kotkaniemi, which became locked into place when he played for the Canadiens in a 3-0 win against the Boston Bruins at TD Garden on Saturday, didn't appear to be a difficult decision.
Kotkaniemi still has a significant way to go to reach his full potential. He has the size and strength typical of an NHL rookie, and even more typical of an 18-year-old trying to play in a league not always suited to teenagers with teenaged bodies. He needs to continue to familiarize himself with the smaller ice surfaces in North America, with the opponents he will face, with the interior of the net.

But he's earned high marks so far.
"I think he's done a really good job," coach Claude Julien said. "I see a lot of David Pastrnak in him. A young player with so much talent and, basically, with time and experience and learning the little details of the game, he's only going to get better, so very, very similar situation."
Julien should know.
The now-Canadiens coach managed Pastrnak through the then-18-year-old's first foray into the NHL while he was coach of the Bruins in 2014-15. Pastrnak was the youngest player in the League, and Julien had to work to put him into situations that maximized his advantages and minimized his drawbacks as he started to blossom into the player he is now - a two-time 30-goal scorer who has 10 goals in his first 11 games this season.
Julien did that on Saturday by having center Phillip Danault take a heftier load, including some shifts in Kotkaniemi's spot. The idea was to protect Kotkaniemi from having to play against the Bruins' top line of Brad Marchand, Patrice Bergeron and Pastrnak.
"Especially on the road, you've got to try and protect those players, make sure you don't put them in situations where they're going to get exposed or lose their confidence," Julien said before the game.
For Kotkaniemi, that confidence is building. His mother recently moved to Montreal from Pori, Finland, to live with her son. It has eased the transition and, as he said, "I get good food every day, and it's nice to come home when she's there."
He has worked to adjust to the smaller ice, the pace and the strength of his opponents. He is seeing the fruits of his labors.
"From the time he started off in the rookie tournament, where he was really trying to find his way, he's made huge strides," Julien said.
There are still many more strides to be made.
It appears Kotkaniemi is on track to get there. He won't always have to be sheltered. He will get the assignments that his team shies away from now. He will be expected to do more and to be more, on the ice.
He will also be expected to score.

Kotkaniemi was hoping his first NHL goal would come on Saturday against Boston goalie Tuukka Rask, a fellow Finn. He said, even after 10 games with no goals and four assists, that he is not yet getting anxious.
"I think that's coming," he said. "I just need to keep shooting and someday [the] puck will find the net."
Asked if he was being told to shoot more, Kotkaniemi smiled and said, "Yeah. Every day."
It was not his night for that first goal on Saturday, and not his night overall. It was a game for Kotkaniemi that Julien said -- in French -- was just ordinary. Not bad. But ordinary. Still, Kotkaniemi was caught exiting the ice at TD Garden with a grin plastered across his face, perhaps a result of his youthful exuberance, perhaps a result of the knowledge that he is not going anywhere right now.
"It's a big number," he said, with a chuckle, of his 10th game. "I hope I will get many more."