Korpisalo nearly back for Blue Jackets in Finland: 'It's been a long road'
Brian Hedger
Jari Korpisalo was Assat Pori's captain and a high-scoring forward in Finland when his 8-year-old son, Joonas, gave him an ultimatum.
“One day, I just was like, ‘OK, if I can’t be the goalie today, I’m not going to practice,’” said Joonas, who’s now 28 and in his eighth season with the Blue Jackets. “My dad was still playing at that time, and he was like, ‘You sure you don’t want to be a forward?’ He was trying to push me that way, like, ‘You don’t want to be a goalie. Are you sure?’ And here we are.”
It’s been quite a journey for Korpisalo, who's recovered from hip surgery and is back in Finland as the Blue Jackets battle the Colorado Avalanche Friday and Saturday in Tampere as part of the NHL global series.
"It feels kind of weird going home in the middle of the season to play NHL games," Korpisalo said. "The 'dream come true' is just playing in the NHL. This is something you don’t even dream about. I was never thinking, like, ‘Hey, it’d be cool to play an NHL game in Finland,’ because ... how would that even happen, you know? Now that it’s happening, it’s pretty cool.”
He will be playing in front of his parents, Jari and Niina, plus his two siblings, grandparents, extended family and friends; and all in a city where Korpisalo excelled for Tampareen Ilves in Liiga, the Finnish league that used to be called SM-Liiga during his father's playing days.
Jari Korpisalo played the bulk of his career in that circuit with Assat, but also played in Germany's DEL and won a league championship there in 1999-2000. After retiring, he joined the coaching ranks in time to watch his son’s goaltending career take off.
Now the two live "almost too close," to each other in Helsinki, where Korpisalo and his wife, Anna, recently nought a house near his parents, Jari and Niina.
"They come by pretty often,” Korpisalo said, smirking. “It’s nice. We don’t see them through the whole (NHL) season, so it’s pretty cool.”
Columbus Blue Jackets goalie Joonas Korpisalo returns to Tampere
This week is a bit surreal for Korpisalo.
Starting Monday, he enjoyed three days in Helsinki before the Blue Jackets headed to Tampere to face the Avalanche at Nokia Arena, a new 13,455-seat palace that hosts two Liiga teams, Tappara and Ilves.
The latter of those two, Ilves, is the one Korpisalo played for after a loan agreement was struck with Jokerit that allowed him to get more ice time. That was the key to Korpisalo earning an invitation to play in North America from the Blue Jackets, who'd selected him in the third round of the 2012 NHL draft. Korpisalo's first stop was with the AHL's Springfield Falcons in 2015 before following the team to Cleveland the following year.
Korpisalo split 2015-16 between the Lake Erie Monsters – now Cleveland Monsters – and Columbus, where he filled in while former Blue Jackets star Sergei Bobrovsky was sidelined. He logged 31 NHL games and helped the Monsters, who won the AHL’s Calder Cup championship. Korpisalo and Elvis Merzlikins then split the net in 2019-20, after Bobrovsky left as a free agent, and that’s when injuries cropped up.
A torn meniscus cost Korpisalo two months that season, after he’d already earned an invite to the NHL All-Star game. His hip started barking louder the next two years. Korpisalo was in peak form in August 2020, when he backstopped the Blue Jackets during an upset of the host Toronto Maple Leafs in a qualifying series before making 85 saves against the Tampa Bay Lightning to set an NHL postseason record in a gut-wrenching Game 1 loss that ended in the fifth overtime.
That feels like ages ago.
Joonas Korpisalo happy to stay with Columbus Blue Jackets
Prior to making the decision last March to surgically repair a torn labrum in one of his hips, Korpisalo read the tea leaves. The Blue Jackets had already agreed to a five-year contract extension with Merzlikins, Korpisalo's play was a shade of what it used to be and he seemed destined for another NHL stop courtesy of the NHL trade deadline.
Instead, no trade emerged and Korpisalo ended up signing a one-year deal to remain with the Blue Jackets, who still had Merzlikins as the starter and rookie Daniil Tarasov coming back from the same type of hip surgery Korpisalo had.
Korpisalo's 38 saves last week in a Monsters victory over the Syracuse Crunch indicated he's now ready for his first NHL game since March 22 against Pittsburgh.
“He’s a pro and it was a rough year,” said Blue Jackets coach Brad Larsen. “Anything that could’ve gone bad for him, I felt like it did last year. Little injuries, nagging injuries, it was a tough year. So, he got his body taken care of, and it’s a fresh start.”
Larsen is expected to play Korpisalo in one of the games against Colorado.
It’s also the culmination of a trying period. Korpisalo, who had the surgery done in New York, said Anna, his wife, was his main source of support.
“I couldn’t do anything for the first two or three weeks after surgery,” he said. “I couldn’t even put my socks on my feet. I wasn’t supposed to move my hip flexor and you basically need your hip flexor to do anything, so she had to help me with everything. That wasn’t fun at all, but she was a huge help.”
His desire to keep playing was too.
“It’s been a long road,” Korpisalo said, smiling. “I’m just happy to play again.”
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Blue Jackets vs. Avalanche
When: 2 p.m. Friday
TV: Bally Sports Ohio
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