DENVER — After breaking a nine-game goal-less drought in the Colorado Avalanche’s 6-5 win against the Calgary Flames, star Avalanche right wing Mikko Rantanen had a message for a teammate’s father in his postgame interview.
“One of our Finnish NHL players’ dad was talking s— about me in media, that I didn’t train last summer like I used to,” Rantanen said. “He was making things up. That was for him. If you talk s—, it’s going to come back at you.”
Advertisement
Rantanen’s comments came after Ismo Lehkonen, father of Artturi Lehkonen, gave an interview to YLE, the Finnish broadcasting company for which he works as an analyst. In the interview — translated for The Athletic by Finnish journalist Ville Touru, who works for Ilta-Sanomat — Lehkonen wondered if Rantanen had hit a wall.
“He didn’t have a very good summer,” Lehkonen said. “There was a lot happening, many events of all kinds. He had to visit Helsinki and everything like that. … Perhaps he consciously took the summer a little more calmly after the hard years. And maybe he didn’t practice as much as in previous summers.”
Rantanen said reading Lehkonen’s comments in the morning gave him extra energy going into the Calgary game. He finished with a goal and two assists, including a secondary helper on Nathan MacKinnon’s game-winning goal.
“I thought he was a horse tonight,” coach Jared Bednar said.
Rantanen has been in a rut of late, and Bednar has moved him around the lineup to try to spark his play. MacKinnon was complimentary of the wing’s game Saturday against the Philadelphia Flyers, and Bednar also called it a step in the right direction. He generated chances against the Flyers, then continued that Monday against the Flames. His goal came in front of the net, where he backhanded a loose puck past Dan Vladar. He threw his arms up in celebration as he fell to the ice.
After Colorado’s comeback victory, Rantanen said the quotes in the YLE interview were “not true at all.”
The winger has 34 points in 28 games. He had six assists in his past nine games before breaking out of his slump against Calgary.
“I know I haven’t been playing well,” Rantanen continued. “If people want to criticize, it’s totally fine. … But if you start making things up off-ice, that’s when I get mad.”
Advertisement
At the time of publication, Ismo Lehkonen had not returned a call or text from The Athletic.
Artturi Lehkonen is a top-six forward for Colorado currently out with a neck injury. When asked by The Athletic about his relationship with his teammate, Rantanen said, “Everything is totally fine.”
“Me and Art are totally good friends and teammates,” he said.
His problem is solely with what a Finnish analyst said. That analyst just happens to be a fellow Avalanche player’s father.
(Photo of Mikko Rantanen being defended by Calgary’s Yegor Sharangovich: David Zalubowski / Associated Press)
