Each statistic leads active Finland-born NHL goalies.<\/p>\n
“When we have success, you have a player like Saros,” said Jere Lehtinen, general manager for Finland at the Olympics, who also had 514 points (243 goals, 271 assists) in 875 NHL games and is a three-time Selke Trophy winner, voted as the NHL’s best defensive forward, with the Dallas Stars from 1995-2010.<\/p>\n
“That’s a big part. We all know winning teams, their goaltending has been great, in any league or tournament that goes on. It’s great to see what level he can play at. It was a tough season in Nashville, but still, he played a good season.”<\/p>\n
Saros’ most recent body of international work only serves to reinforce that.<\/p>\n
He rebounded at the 2025 IIHF World Championship in May, posting a 4-2-0 record with a 1.67 GAA and .943 save percentage in six starts. Despite Saros allowing 10 goals over six games, Finland finished seventh.<\/p>\n
“He’s pretty chill,” said Tolvanen, who played with the Predators from 2018-22. “I don’t know … there’s just a switch that he flips when he goes to the rink. He’s on his game every time. It’s kind of cool to see how relaxed he is before the game. Even when we have meetings and all that, it seems like it’s not a game day and then he shows up the rink and he has the switch where it’s game-time and he delivers every night.<\/p>\n
“It’s unfortunate how the season went for him, but it’s cool to see how motivated he was to play at 4 Nations for Finland and then he comes to the World Championship as well.”<\/p>\n
That motivation will surely extend to Milano Cortina.<\/p>\n
Saros, who in 2022 was a finalist for the Vezina Trophy, voted as the best goalie in the NHL, is the best bet to be back in net for Finland again in February.<\/p>\n
“I learned what he brought on and off the ice is the biggest thing, I would say,” said Justus Annunen, who formed a tandem with Saros in Nashville last season. “Every day working his (butt) off no matter if it’s on the ice or off the ice. Just a true pro.”<\/p>\n
“I’m not too worried about him. I see him every day. He’s definitely one of the best goalies in the NHL, best goalies in the world. He’s the best Finnish goalie for sure. That’s why he’s the No. 1. I think he’s proven himself for the last … I don’t even know the last number of years.<\/p>\n
“He’s definitely the best goalie in Finland.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Each statistic leads active Finland-born NHL goalies. “When we have success, you have a player like Saros,” said…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":111606,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[433],"tags":[49,48,448,82],"class_list":["post-111605","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111605","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=111605"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111605\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/111606"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=111605"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=111605"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=111605"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}