Advertisement
Sports Now

Ducks’ Koivu to face brother tonight

By Helene Elliott
Sports ColumnistFollow
Share

This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.

Saku Koivu will face his younger brother, Mikko, tonight when the Ducks face the Wild at St. Paul, Minn. It’s not the first time -- they met three times while Saku was a member of the Montreal Canadiens -- but it will be the first time since Saku left Montreal as a free agent.

‘It’s always special. You get in the faceoff circle and you don’t know if you should let him win one or not,’ the Ducks’ Koivu told reporters Tuesday. ‘But it’s always different when you have a new team. It’s special.’

Advertisement

Saku holds the edge in the brothers’ previous meetings, 2-1. Saku also holds the edge on the scoreboard: He has two assists in their three games and Mikko has been held scoreless.

Koivu will become the seventh member of the Ducks to face his brother in a regular-season game. The others were Dmitri Mironov versus brother Boris of Edmonton; Sean Pronger versus Chris (while Chris was with St. Louis); Ted Drury versus Chris Drury of Colorado; Paul Kariya versus younger brother Steve of Vancouver; Rob Niedermayer versus older brother Scott (then with New Jersey) and Drew Miller versus goaltender brother Ryan of Buffalo.

-- Helene Elliott

Sports Now
Helene Elliott

Helene Elliott was with the Los Angeles Times’ Sports department from 1989 to 2024, first as a staff writer and then, starting in 2006, as a columnist. She became the first female journalist to be honored with a plaque in the Hall of Fame of a major professional sport as the 2005 winner of the Hockey Hall of Fame’s Elmer Ferguson Award, awarded to writers “who have brought honor to journalism and to hockey.” A native of Brooklyn, N.Y., and graduate of Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, she has covered 18 Olympics.

Advertisement