EDMONTON — Way back in the far corner of the Carolina Hurricanes dressing room, there’s a double-wide locker stall as big as a goalie’s but reserved for a skater. Just a quirk of the room’s architecture. It’s physically as far as possible from the door to the locker room, as far as possible from the reporters who file in day after day. It’s quiet, downright secluded. Sort of like playing in Raleigh in general.
Teuvo Teräväinen loved it there.
Loved that stall. Loved that pretty much the only reporters who ever wanted to talk to him were Chicago-based ones. Loved the relative peace and anonymity that Raleigh allowed him. Loved playing good, smart hockey for a good, smart team.
“It was a perfect fit for him,” said Winnipeg Jets forward Nino Niederreiter, who played four seasons alongside Teräväinen in Carolina. “He wasn’t getting the attention that he probably should be, as good as he is, but that’s something which he really likes a lot.”
Teräväinen doesn’t pretend otherwise. He didn’t really want to leave, to be honest.
“I really liked it there,” Teräväinen said. “We had such a good team, I was good buddies with the team. A lot of Finns on the team every year, too, which was nice. Too bad it just didn’t work out at the end. I would have loved to have stayed. But at the same time, I felt like it was time for me to see something else.”
So it was perhaps a little surprising that Teräväinen signed a three-year contract with the Chicago Blackhawks, the team that drafted him, the team with which he won the Stanley Cup at 20 years old. After all, this is the guy who, when asked what was going through his mind when he scored a huge goal in the Stanley Cup Final in 2015, famously quipped, “Oh, no, now I have to do media.”
Chicago brought attention; the spotlight on Connor Bedard reflects on everyone in that room. Chicago brought history; fans took to Teräväinen right away as a rookie and have long lamented him as one of the ones who got away. And Chicago brought a long road to contention for a player who just hit the wrong side of 30.
Chicago is pretty much the anti-Carolina in so many ways. But that had its own appeal. Sometimes getting uncomfortable is the best way to get rejuvenated. And the fact is, shy as he might be off the ice, Teräväinen has always shined when the spotlight’s been at its brightest. He had four goals and six assists in 18 playoff games as a rookie in 2015 and was a steady playoff contributor for the Hurricanes, with 19 goals and 20 assists over the last six postseasons.
“I like big games, I like the playoff kind of hockey,” he said. “Chicago hasn’t been a playoff team for a while now, but it’s really exciting to try to help them to get back there. There’s a lot of good young players here, for sure. To try to help those young guys to get better, it’s just exciting.”
That starts with Bedard, of course. General manager Kyle Davidson signed Teräväinen to be an option on Bedard’s right wing, to provide the kind of playmaking ability and smart, reliable two-way play that can bring out the best in the Blackhawks’ teenage wunderkind. And the early returns have been spectacular. Bedard set up Teräväinen for a goal in the opener in Salt Lake City, and on Saturday night in Edmonton against the defending Western Conference champions, Teräväinen had two goals and two assists while Bedard had a goal and two assists. They were on the ice together for one even-strength goal and three power-play goals in a 5-2 victory.
“He’s just such a smart player,” Bedard said. “He’s always in the right spot. He never panics with the puck. It’s a lot of fun trying to work around him, for sure.”
Teräväinen sheepishly laughs at the idea, but he’s probably the closest thing the Blackhawks have had to Bedard in terms of hype and fan excitement in recent memory. Teräväinen was just the No. 18 pick in the 2012 draft, but he arrived with the fanfare (if not the personality) of a rock star. Even more than Adam Boqvist or Kirby Dach or Lukas Reichel or Kevin Korchinski, fans latched onto Teräväinen right away, his on-ice brashness offset by his endearing off-ice awkwardness. On a championship team full of veteran superstars, Teräväinen held a unique place in the hearts of the fan base. When then-general manager Stan Bowman threw him in a sweetener to get the last year of Bryan Bickell’s $4 million cap hit off the books in the summer of 2016, the fan base was devastated and furious.
There’s nothing quite like what Bedard faces, but Teräväinen got a small taste of it a decade ago. Of course, he laughed at the comparison.
“I don’t know, I was a little bit in the spotlight back then, but for Connor, it’s different,” Teräväinen said. “It’s so natural for him to be in the spotlight, too. He kind of likes it. He handles it pretty good. I don’t know if I can help him there.”
Then he chuckled again.
“Actually, he can probably help me on how to handle that stuff,” he said.
When Teräväinen broke into the league, he said nearly the entire team took him under their wings. He was a rare rookie on an older team, and he said Jonathan Toews, Marian Hossa, Patrick Kane, Duncan Keith, Brent Seabrook and Patrick Sharp all welcomed him to the league and eased the transition.
Those guys were all big personalities, though. Nobody’s going to confuse Teräväinen with Seabrook anytime soon. Teräväinen wants to do his part to help Bedard and the next wave of Blackhawks prospects break into the league in the coming years. But he said he’s more of a lead-by-example sort than a social director.
“If you get to know him, he’s very fun to be around,” Niederreiter said. “But that’s something which is not easy to do. He’s very quiet. Very Finnish. But he’s a great guy and I really liked him a lot. He’ll be really good for Chicago.”
Blackhawks coach Luke Richardson pointed to Teräväinen’s “calmness” as an asset, one of many new players who bring experience to the lineup.
“He’s more of a doer than a sayer,” Richardson said. “We’ll just go on his actions. You can’t have everybody be a rah-rah guy. You need somebody to actually go out there and do it.”
Through three games, Teräväinen has been the Blackhawks’ top scorer and best all-around player. He’s just one point off the league lead, and through Saturday, he and Seth Jones were the only players with three power-play points already. Not that you’ll hear Teräväinen crow about it, or see him pat himself on the back in any way. After Nick Foligno handed Teräväinen the gaudy chain that goes to the player of the game after a win, he went to sit back quietly at his locker. But his teammates demanded a speech. His speech? “Winning is fun, we have a good team, let’s go, boys.” OK, so he’s more Hemingway than Churchill.
GOOD MORNING HAWKS FANS ‼️ pic.twitter.com/YE5Icax9Db
— Chicago Blackhawks (@NHLBlackhawks) October 13, 2024
“He’s very quiet, but he seems like a super nice guy, really down to earth,” Bedard said. “He came in and won a Cup right away, which is pretty cool for him. He speaks pretty highly of those guys he got to play with coming in. It’s cool that now he gets to come back, however many years later. It’s a cool story.”
A story that Teräväinen can only end in familiar fashion. That, more than anything else, is what he wants to teach Bedard — what it feels like to win in Chicago.
“Chicago’s a great sports city, for sure,” Teräväinen said. “We just need to get the sports teams good again. The feeling in the city is different when the teams are good. It’s amazing. That’s what I want to do again.”
(Top photo of Teuvo Teräväinen and Seth Jones celebrating a Teräväinen goal: Bruce Bennett / Getty Images)
