Koivu name will be synonymous with Wild forever

When Mark Parrish signed a five-year, $13.25 million contract with his hometown Minnesota Wild on July 1, 2006, he really wanted to hearken back to his roots.
After wearing a couple of different jersey numbers in stops with the Buffalo Sabres and Los Angeles Kings before his Minnesota return, Parrish desperately wanted to go back to old reliable jersey No. 21.
It was the same number he wore when he helped lead Bloomington Jefferson to two state championships in high school. It was the same one he wore for two years at St. Cloud State, before departing college a couple years early to begin his NHL career with the Florida Panthers, where he also wore No. 21.

The problem was, when he signed with the Wild, that number belonged to a highly-touted 23-year-old kid named Mikko Koivu, who had just completed his rookie season in the National Hockey League five years after the franchise drafted him with the sixth overall pick in the 2001 NHL Draft.
So, the veteran approached the youngster in an attempt to wrestle his desired number away.
After some back-and-forth, Koivu agreed to give the number to Parrish, only to reveal that he wanted to change to No. 9 anyway.

It's that side of Koivu, an incredibly dry sense of humor and the ability to deliver the perfect one-liner at the perfect moment, that fans in Minnesota rarely saw.
His stone-faced demeanor with the cameras on would often melt behind closed doors in the presence of those that know him best.
"His bark was always a lot worse than his bite," said Wild equipment manager Tony DaCosta, who has been with Koivu since day one in Minnesota and is one of his closest friends. "Lets get this straight: Mikko was a guy who loved giving it out, but he wasn't the best at taking it. I always joked with him anytime I'd see him smile, 'Oh you do have teeth,' because you'd never see them.
"But he's a loyal guy. He'd do anything for anyone, I believe that. I know that. He just loved being captain of the Wild, no doubt about that. And he always seemed more miserable than he actually was. He enjoyed everything about being a professional hockey player, I know that for a fact."
Make no mistake, however ... few in franchise history have ever taken their job more seriously, especially early in his career as the determined Finnish centerman tried to establish himself in the NHL, while at the same time, trying to emerge from the shadow of his immensely popular older brother, Saku, who spent 10 years as captain of the Montreal Canadiens.
Over time, Mikko did exactly that, himself spending more than a decade wearing the 'C' as captain of the franchise that drafted him, playing all but seven of his 1,035 career games in Minnesota.
Koivu announced his retirement from hockey on Tuesday, announcing in a press release from the Columbus Blue Jackets that, despite one goal and one assist in his first seven games with his new team, he simply felt he was no longer playing at the kind of level he expected of himself.
"The bottom line is I haven't been able to get to the level of play that I need to be true to myself and fair to my teammates," Koivu said in the statement. "So the time is right for me to retire from hockey."

It was a stunning and sobering admission for the proud long-time captain of the Wild, one that brought back serious memories for a former teammate of Koivu's with the Wild, Wes Walz.
Like Koivu, Walz walked away from the game he loved midseason, announcing his departure from the game on Dec. 1, 2007, 11 games into the season.
"It actually brought back a lot of memories," Walz said. "Seeing Mikko say those words, it just brought me back. I think I said the exact same thing."
Like Koivu, who played with Walz for each of his first two full seasons -- and the nearly dozen or so more in 2008-09 -- Walz was immensely competitive and maintained a high bar for himself on the ice.
But when father time came calling, it came calling in a hurry. And instead of playing out the string, Walz, like Koivu, had no desire to cheat his teammates by giving them anything less than what they were accustomed to.
"I just felt like there was no way I could get to the level that I expected myself to get to, and Mikko felt the same way," Walz said. "He's just a very proud player. He didn't want to let his teammates down and that was the kind of guy that he was. He was never about 'me' ever."

It was that team-first attitude that endeared him to teammates and coaches alike during his 15-season run in Minnesota. He earned the admiration and high praise from every single coach the Wild has ever had, from Jacques Lemaire, through Todd Richards -- the coach that named him the first full-time captain in team history -- to Mike Yeo, John Torchetti, Bruce Boudreau and Dean Evason.
Darby Hendrickson never played with Koivu -- his playing career in the NHL ended one year before Koivu's began -- but the Richfield native covered him as a television analyst for three seasons before moving into a coaching position with the Wild, where he coached Koivu for nine seasons working under four different head coaches.
Hendrickson first met Koivu just before the latter's rookie season at an NHL Players' Association event. Hendrickson had been with the team when it drafted Koivu in 2001, knew of his talent, and the team's future with him in the mix.
But what struck him was Koivu's eagerness to learn more about the franchise, specifically the team's 2003 run to the Western Conference Final. There are few better ambassadors for the Wild -- then, or now -- than Hendrickson, who has been a part of the franchise in some capacity for 16 of the team's 20 seasons.
"He was young, but he was focused, and you could just tell that he wanted to, not only make it, but be really good," Hendrickson said. "He really was inquisitive on our team in '03 that made the run, and he was coming to a place he was excited about in Minnesota. I think with the pedigree with his family, he was going to prove that the Wild made the right choice."
Famously, it was almost a choice they didn't get to make.
While the top two picks in the 2001 draft were pretty well decided, the Wild would have to sweat out the Tampa Bay Lightning, picking third, the Florida Panthers at four and the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim selecting fifth.
There was also the Montreal Canadiens, picking seventh, who made no bones about their desire to reunite Mikko with Saku.
Minnesota's draft table that year was right next to Montreal's, so then-GM Doug Risebrough, as well as Lemaire -- each with deep Canadiens roots -- talked up a pair of highly-touted goaltenders expected to go early in that draft.
As the draft continued, and Koivu fell into their laps, the Wild rushed to the podium and announced him as their selection at sixth overall.
Fists slammed hard against the Canadiens' table with audible disappointment mumbled in a couple of different languages.
Koivu debuted in North America with the club's AHL affiliate, then the Houston Aeros, in 2004-05 because of the NHL lockout that cost the League the entire season.
The Aeros played a game in St. Paul at Xcel Energy Center that season, and Koivu was determined to play there full-time the following season.
He debuted with the WIld on Nov. 5, 2005 in San Jose and scored his first NHL goal the next night in Anaheim.
Thus began a career with Minnesota that would span 1,028 games, where he would record 205 goals and 504 assists for 709 points. Koivu is the club's all-time leader in games played, assists and points and ranks second in goals.
Koivu ranks first in franchise history in plus/minus (plus-70), shots on goal (2,270), power-play points (251), power-play assists (191), shorthanded points (25) and multi-point games (153).
That doesn't even take into account dozens of other stats where he's either first or second in team history.

Perhaps Alex Stalock, his on-again, off-again rabble-rousing partner in the Wild dressing room described him best when Koivu was prepping to play in his 1,000th NHL game last season.
"I think when you say, 'Minnesota Wild,' the first thing that comes to everybody's mind in the hockey world is Mikko," Stalock said. "He's been here, he's had the 'C' on for years now, the No. 9. That's what you think of.
"You know what you're going to get every single time he's on the ice. There's times I'm sure fans are like, 'well, what are we gonna get tonight from this guy,' and I think every night, when a fan turns the game on, they know exactly what they're gonna get out of Mikko. It's gonna be all-out effort, he's gonna leave everything on the ice and he's gonna compete on every single draw and every single play."
That's what made him so reliable for so many years, and it wasn't just a facade put on by Koivu on game days. That's the way he lived his hockey life all the time.
Take it from Stephane Veilleux, who knows Koivu better than perhaps anyone other than his family.
Selected 87 picks after Koivu in the third round of the 2001 draft, Veilleux roomed with Koivu his first year in North America in Houston, then roomed with him again when each ascended to the NHL the following season.
The two spent hundreds of nights in neighboring beds across the continent during an era where every NHL player had a roommate on the road.
"His hatred of losing was off the charts," Veilleux said. "He gave it all. He gave his whole heart on the ice. So to me, he's at peace with that. He always left it, whether it was in the gym, or on the ice or his preparation ... so he has no regret in that area.
"So as much as we all think it might be hard to walk away, to me, he's at peace with everything, with all the sacrifices he made so he could have the long career that he had."
Just 24 hours removed from the announcement of his retirement, and only a few months after it was determined that Koivu wouldn't play for the Wild again, it can be hard to fully understand how much of an impact he had on the organization as a whole.
But with the team celebrating it's 20th season this year, there's no doubt that the Wild franchise will still be celebrating Koivu 20 years from now and long into the future after that.
He's the tie that binds the early years of the franchise to the present day group, the one that brings together Walz and Andrew Brunette with Zach Parise and Ryan Suter.
He's the first full-time captain in franchise history, a title that will never be taken away no matter how many more follow in his footsteps.
"He'll go down forever here, from the birth of this franchise," Hendrickson said. "Obviously there's been a change with a lot of us [players] over the years, but he did it longer than anyone. Even the Brunos of the world left and came back, a lot of us had our stint for a period of time, where he had that longevity and that consistency that set him apart.
"I know he loved Minnesota and he always wanted to be here, but I'm sure there were times when he could have sought a scenario somewhere else. But he was dedicated to Minnesota. He wanted to be here, be a captain and to lead this franchise."
That label is one that Koivu always took tremendous pride in. And it's one that will always be synonymous with him, no matter what the next chapter brings.
"Overall, he represents the Wild. He's the face of the Wild," DaCosta said. "Being captain as long as he was, an original draft pick and everything. I think he's basically the Wild. When people see that logo, they'll remember Mikko Koivu."