KERANEN READY TO PROVE HE BELONGS

Oct 16, 2014

 By Tom Witosky

www.iowawild.com

Follow Tom at @toskyAHLWild

Michael Keranen may of had a career year last season, but he has no doubt Iowa Wild fans are going to watch him get better each game.

“I can get better in many ways,” the 24-year-old forward from Tampere, Finland said this week. “My skills are going to get better and I need to get better on both ends of the rink. “

In June, Keranen signed a one-year two-way entry-level contract with the Minnesota Wild after finishing the 2013-14 season as the second-leading scorer in Finland’s SM-Liiga, the country’s top rung in professional hockey

 Keranen led his team, Ives Tampere, with 52 points (17 goals and 35 assists)  in 52 games and captured the league’s “Golden Helmet” award as best player voted by league players as well as the Lasse Oksanen Trophy, awarded to  league’s best player  during the regular season. Past recipients of those awards include former  Boston Bruins goalie Tim Thomas, former Montreal Canadians forward Saku Koivu and Chicago Blackhawks goalie Antti Raanta.

After that kind of season, Minnesota Wild club officials signed Keranan as part of the apparent effort to boost the club’s offensive capabilities.  Listed at 6-foot and 180 pounds. Keranen is considered a crafty playmaker with good speed, strength with the puck and good overall vision on the ice

Iowa Wild Coach Kurt Kleinendorst described Keranen as “a calculating playmaker capable of scoring goals.”

“Keranen is more of a finesse player who is strong on the puck,” Kleinendorst said.

Last weekend, Keranen scored the Wild’s first goal of the season, his first goal in an Iowa Wild uniform, in the second period of the Wild’s 3-2 loss at San Antonio. He followed that game with an assist in the Wild’s next game against the 2014 Calder Cup champion Texas Stars.

“I started to get more comfortable in training camp and every day it gets better,” Keranan said.

Kleinendorst said that Keranen, like most players new to North American hockey and living in the U.S. for the first time, is going through an adjustment period that is likely to frustrate him on the ice, but eventually disappear as he gets accustomed to playing in Des Moines.  

“Playing in Iowa is probably something he didn’t anticipate giving how he played last season,” Kleinendorst  said.  “But he is definitely one of those players I watch in practice and see him get better as everyone gets accustomed to each other. He is going to be just fine.”

Keranan said that the biggest adjustment has been to get accustomed to playing on the smaller North American rinks instead of the larger European rinks where passing the puck plays a much larger role in games.

“You don’t that much time here to make decisions,” Keranan said. “It’s more like dump the puck and go after it instead of all of the passing that is done on the bigger ice.”

As the season progresses, Keranan said he is intent on trying to get up to St. Paul to play with the NHL Wild, but is committed to remaining with the club throughout the season.

“I am here to stay for the season,” he said. “I had a chance to go back, but decided it was better for me to remain here. But, of course, I do want to move up to the NHL too.”

Born in Sweden, Keranen said that his family moved to Tampere, Finland when he was young.  He laughed at the suggestion that he might soon be joining four of his countrymen – Erik Haula, Mikael Granlund, Mikko Koivu and Niklas Backstrom – in a contingent becoming known as the Finnesotans.

“Sure why not,” he said. “Sounds like fun to me.”

Wild notes…Kleinendorst said the opening weekend of the season in Texas felt a lot more like preseason to him than regular season. “It really was the first chance we had for all the guys to play together. It was disappointing, but we were more than competitive” Kleinendorst said the addition of defenseman Stu Bickel to the roster will help him throughout the season, particularly if there are injuries to forwards. “Stu can play forward as well and that just adds to the depth,” Kleinendorst said. Of the overall roster, Kleinendorst expressed confidence in the team’s ability to win games. “I know what this team is capable of and I expect this group to get better every single week”.