This is probably the toughest grade article to write this year, not due to Aatos Koivu’s performance in itself, but because TPS Turku has been in shambles, on and off the ice. The Liiga club and Rasmus Bergqvist’s Skellefteå, saw similar experiences for their Montreal Canadiens prospects, but are still poles apart. One team is arguably Scandinavia’s, and Europe’s, top team, the other is at the other end of the spectrum.
Coach Toni Söderholm tried to implement a completely new system. Aatos’s uncle, Mikko Koivu, was added to the coaching team and on top of it all the club got draw into a labour law situation with regard to Pride jerseys that had a fallout all the way up to the boardroom.
It wasn’t the easiest season for Aatos who looked to jump out of the gate and showcase the talent that was visible during last year’s development camp and the Summer Showcase. However, on the two biggest stages this year, the World Junior Championships and Liiga, Koivu has been left wanting.
He finished the World Juniors with two points, a goal against Denmark and an assist against Latvia. He was benched against Canada in the round robin after making two bad defensive plays in the 7-4 loss, and scratched in the next two games against the United States and Sweden in the playoffs. He did return but on the fourth line for the Bronze Medal Game.
Aatos played 46 games in Liiga. He was with the team in the last game of the season but didn’t take to the ice, and missed the games from December 11 to January 16 due to the World Juniors. The points came throughout the season and there is no statistical model (Pearson, Welch and Mann–Whitney) that points to a correlation between that and increased time on ice equalling increased scoring.
I spoke to multiple European scouts that have insight to players in Liiga. One scout even said “I would have preferred to have a player in any other team in Liiga than in TPS.” This speaks to a very different situation that Koivu had to navigate last season.
Strengths
Aatos is a shooter, and therefore very different from Mikko and his dad, Saku, but the shot is great and when he has confidence in his own play he uses it to deadly effect — as seen last summer. One Swedish Junior player that played against him in different International U20’s tournaments mentioned that “his shot came from everywhere, you could not let him have any space. It was hidden and fast. He used the wrists to great effect to get velocity on the puck.”
Weaknesses
His game is built around his shot, and when it doesn’t work or Koivu doesn’t get the chance to show it, then his confidence seems to go away and it impacts his overall game.
His defence is a weakness at this point. That was clear during the WJC, and part of his low usage in Liiga. In hindsight, it would probably have been better to have Aatos play in the U20s for another year and focus on that rather than bring him up to TPS for the 2025-26 season. His reads and positioning make him a bit of a liability in defensive-zone coverage, and that is one aspect of the game that definitely needs improvement no matter where Aatos continues his career.
Let’s remember that it took time for Oliver Kapanen, whose name holds similar status in Finland, to lose the burden of living up to a legacy, but the fact that Saku is part of the ownership group along with his uncle must be added pressure. In Sweden, sons to former players have gone to different teams to get away from the shadows of their fathers; Lias Andersson went to HV71 (his dad, and uncle, are Frölunda legends) and Herman Liv went to Örebro (his dad is a HV71 legend, and a Swedish goalkeeper legend in general). Maybe that would have been the best for Aatos’s progression as well. Kapanen’s breakthrough came in Timrå, even though his father played there, and was the GM at the time Oliver arrived, so there are different sides to the coin.
Grade: D
It is tough, but I think it’s fair. If we start by looking at things that Aatos could have impacted himself, he hasn’t improved in defensive zone, and if that had happened one would have to think that he could have forced himself into a bigger role in TPS. The team finished fourth-last in Liiga and didn’t reach the playoffs. For a young player to average around 11 minutes a game in a bottom team means he wasn’t trusted by the coaches and that is due to the defensive aspects.
Even with limited ice time, one would expect a shooter to have more than nine points (4G, 5A) in a 47-game season, that draws down the grade as well.
Then there are other things that impact the grade and potentially could have raised it, and that is the turbulence around TPS this season and the addition of Mikko to the coaching staff. One would think that it can impact Aatos in the way that he had to prove more in order for it to not be seen as preferential treatment from the coaching staff. However, TPS needed everything that they could have gotten this season. It was also the last season without relegation in Liiga; they could have used that security to grant experience to young players.
In the end, we all want Aatos to succeed. I have heard from two different scouts that the Canadiens have looked into moving him to another team, but my own contacts in Montreal haven’t confirmed this. He has another year on his contract with TPS, but the question is if he can take a step forward and make a move to Laval when that ends, or if Montreal wants him to go for another year on a new team in Europe. It all remains to be seen. The puck is at Aatos’s stick, and he has to prove himself this year.
