Former Montreal Canadiens forward Jesperi Kotkaniemi spent his day with the Stanley Cup in Finland earlier this week, bringing hockey’s biggest prize back to his hometown.
Kotkaniemi’s stop with the Cup took him to the arena where he once played with Assat Pori in the SM-Liiga, according to his Instagram account. Pori is also where he grew up, making the visit a true homecoming for the center.
He is the second former Canadiens player to get a day with the Cup since the Carolina Hurricanes won it last June. Roughly 10 days earlier, Nicolas Deslauriers had his own time with Lord Stanley’s mug.
Kotkaniemi is still under contract with Carolina for four more years at a $4.82 million cap hit. He is midway through the eight-year deal he signed with the Hurricanes in March 2022, after being taken from Montreal on a one-year offer sheet carrying a $6.1 million cap hit.
The third-overall pick from the 2018 draft has never topped 43 points in a season, and the Canadiens’ hopes for him in Montreal - and Carolina’s hopes when they signed him to both the offer sheet and the extension - have not been fully realized.
There had been talk that the Hurricanes might buy him out this offseason, but that never happened. Reports also surfaced that Carolina told teams interested in trading for RFA defenseman Alexander Nikishin that they would have to take Kotkaniemi in the deal. For now, both Nikishin and Kotkaniemi remain with the Hurricanes.
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