I grew up watching Miikka when he played for my hometown team, TPS. He came into the league and I remember thinking this guy will never be any good, weak glove and just weak all over the place.
We had two really good goalies at that point in Jani Hurme and Fredrik Norrena (and team- TPS won 5 championships in the 90's) so he went to Sweden for a couple of years. When he came back he looked completely different. I still wonder that happened during those two years in Sweden, he looked amazing and dominated the Liiga the year he came back.
I always thought he didn't get a fair shot in SJ because of Nabokov. He was the most dominant goalie I've ever seen play in the Liiga (and the reason why TPS won in 1999) so I thought it would be just a matter of time before he would be a starter in the nhl.
And yeah, he's the reason I'm a Flames fan. heh
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