For Aku Koskenvuo, the only market that matters this offseason is the crease.<\/p>\n
The Harvard economics major has shelved internships and summer classes in favour of a singular investment: his professional hockey career. In previous summers, he split his time between training and gaining experience in the financial world. He interned for a law firm in Finland after his freshman year and analyzed supply chains for a U.S. hedge fund after his sophomore year. He balanced one-month internships so he could train in June and July to be ready for training camp in August.<\/p>\n
\u201cDefinitely both of the summers were great experiences which I enjoyed, but also maybe they made me realize that I want to do hockey,\u201d Koskenvuo laughed.<\/p>\n
This offseason, the market conditions are perfect \u2013 ice time is in abundant supply, and his demand for development is at an all-time high. The Finnish goaltender signed a two-year entry-level contract with the Vancouver Canucks in March and is fully invested in sharpening his game.<\/p>\n
At his fourth Canucks development camp, Koskenvuo worked closely with goaltending coach Marko Torenius and the rest of the coaching staff, dialing in on details of rebound control, post play, and staying composed in high-pressure situations.<\/p>\n
Since development camp, he\u2019s been working on tracking, specifically on rebounds and post saves, and he\u2019s adjusting the pace of his game in the crease and refining reads.<\/p>\n
Back in Finland, he\u2019s been skating with different groups of pro players in Helsinki, and off the ice, he\u2019s been training with a coach recommended by Torenius.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt’s been [about] working on tracking and then just being more calm in the net. I think we’ve made some steps on that, we\u2019ve been working on it almost daily, so that’s been good. Off the ice, I\u2019ve been in the gym a lot this summer, lifting weights, and I\u2019ve been working on the assault bike, so we’ve been getting some good sweats in our training sessions,\u201d Koskenvuo said.<\/p>\n
Koskenvuo connected with fellow Finnish netminder Kevin Lankinen a couple summers ago, and this summer they skated together a few times. Skating with Lankinen makes Koskenvuo feel even more comfortable going into training camp as the 22-year-old has had the opportunity to talk hockey, ask questions, and learn the habits of an everyday NHLer.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt’s great getting to work with him, and just to learn from him. Obviously, he\u2019s a top-notch guy, so it’s great getting to hang out with him on the ice,\u201d Koskenvuo said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the biggest advice he can give to me is just letting me watch him in the net and see how he does things, and then just try to implement those things into my game.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the second half of his junior year, the work Koskenvuo put in with Torenius and Ian Clark translated into more consistent play. They worked together to simplify his game and worked on his mental preparation, fine-tuning his resets after each sequence to make sure he was on point.<\/p>\n
He started 18 of 33 games for the Crimson last season, posting a .902 save percentage and 2.81 goals-against average. In the Eastern Conference Athletic Conference (ECAC) playoffs, the 22-year-old stopped 34 of 36 shots he faced against Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute to help the Crimson to the quarterfinals against Clarkson University. In the three-game series against Clarkson, Harvard went the distance and Koskenvuo stopped 81 of 88 shots he faced through the series, including turning aside 37 of 39 shots faced in Game 3.<\/p>\n
\u201cTowards the end of last season, we made good strides in putting days and weeks together \u2013 and even a couple of months together \u2013 getting solid games night after night,\u201d Koskenvuo said.<\/p>\n
That consistency is his primary metric for success.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust focusing on giving everything I have today, and then when tomorrow comes it’s time to do it again. I\u2019m just trying to stay in the present,” he said. “It’s something we\u2019ve got to keep working on, but also something I’m starting to feel a lot more confident in, and I think it’s going to help me during my first year [as a] pro.\u201d<\/p>\n
Koskenvuo will be at Canucks training camp in a month\u2019s time and wants to show that he can be a consistent goaltender that can help the team win games.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want to be the calmest goalie out there, portray confidence, and show that I can do it night after night. It doesn’t matter what the last game ended up or what the score was, perform at your best level every single night. I think that’s what I want to showcase by showing up every single day for every single session,\u201d Koskenvuo said.<\/p>\n
With a summer of uninterrupted development, he\u2019s looking to prove his game is like any smart investment that compounds steadily over time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For Aku Koskenvuo, the only market that matters this offseason is the crease. The Harvard economics major has…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":83142,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[64,63,575,85],"class_list":["post-83141","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83141","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=83141"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83141\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/83142"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=83141"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=83141"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=83141"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}