The quality that strikes you about Niko Mikkola is the exuberance he displays whenever he has the chance to either initiate or participate in a physical encounter.
A fracas breaks out, and there racing toward the scene is Big 77, like a child responding to the chimes from a nearby ice-cream truck.
If Dylan McIlrath had been a mobile 6-foot-5 Finn, that’s what he would have looked like. Or have you forgotten the zeal with which the 2010 first-rounder intervened when Derek Stepan suffered broken ribs on a late hit from Boston’s (and later, Hartford’s) Matt Beleskey on Black Friday of 2015? Or when he took on Wayne Simmonds after the-then Philadelphia enforcer concussed Ryan McDonagh with a sucker-punch three months later?
Of these Rangers’ in-season additions, Vlad Tarasenko has been a good fit, Tyler Motte has added an important ingredient to the fourth line and Patrick Kane is still trying to find his footing after an underwhelming first 16 games wearing the Blueshirt.
But Mikkola, who came to New York with Tarasenko in the Feb. 9 deal in which a first-rounder, a fourth-rounder, Sammy Blais and Hunter Skinner went to St. Louis, has been a lifesaver in adjusting from the third-pair role for which he was acquired to fill to a top-four spot alongside Adam Fox during Ryan Lindgren’s long-term absence.
The complement of available left defensemen on expiring contracts — the field to which GM Chris Drury was restricted this trade season — was limited. None was as attractive as Mikkola to a head coach in Gerard Gallant who values — if not prioritizes — size and physicality from the third pair.
Mikkola was acquired to become Braden Schneider’s partner. That’s the way it went for No. 77’s first seven contests as a Ranger, during which he averaged 15:39 of ice time. But then Lindgren went down with a left shoulder injury in the first period at Washington on Feb. 25 that has sidelined the invaluable defenseman for 17 of the Blueshirts’ past 18 games.
Instead of being a support player, Mikkola was thrust into the role of playing on one of his team’s matchup pairs. That meant learning how to play off Fox, who had been one half of a matched set with Lindgren back to their early teenage days with the US National program.
That meant assuming more ice time for Mikkola. The pending free agent is averaging 20:07 of ice time per over his past 18 games, nearly 4:00 above his daily allotment through his 139 matches with the Blues.
More to the point, the Mikkola-Fox tandem has been on for nine goals for and eight against.
That may not be in Lindgren-Fox territory (41/25 for a 62.12 goals-for percentage that ranks fourth this season among NHL tandems with at least 750 minutes at five-on-five), but the retrofitted second pair has been able to hold its own at both ends of the ice.
Mikkola was a minor-penalty machine his first 11 games, picking up seven minors (two for holding plus one apiece for hooking, interference, high-sticking, tripping and delay of game) that left his team shorthanded.
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He has been assessed only one minor, though, in the past 16 games. Discipline and dependability have improved dramatically.
Sunday, Mikkola inserted himself into a late third-period melee in Washington involving Barclay Goodrow, Alex Ovechkin and Tom Wilson before dropping his gloves with Martin Fehervary.
You might want to say the big man got involved rather gleefully.
Where’s Chris?
Other than in the locker room. … No. I. Have. Not. Seen. Chris. Much. At. All. Lately.
It’s getting busy in Hartford
The Wolf Pack have won four straight and six of their past seven to move into a playoff spot, one point ahead of the Islanders’ Bridgeport affiliate that has six games to play to Hartford’s five. The teams will meet Friday in Hartford while also incorporating some new names.
• Adam Sykora, the 2022 second-rounder who recorded 22 points (9-13) in 41 games for HK Mitra of the Slovak Extraliga, has been skating with the Wolf Pack and is likely to get in a game before the regular season ends.
• Adam Edstrom, the 22-year-old, 6-foot-7 center out of Sweden selected in the sixth round of the 2019 draft, made his North American pro debut for Hartford in Saturday’s 5-1 victory over Lehigh Valley.
• Bryce McConnell-Barker, the 18-year-old center who was the 97th overall selection of last June’s draft, has also joined the Wolf Pack after posting 77 points (30-47) for the OHL Soo Greyhounds. It is, however, unlikely he would get into a game this season.
Checking in on Vitali
Vancouver coach Rick Tocchet on Vitali Kravtsov (0-1-1 in 13 games for the Canucks), scratched for Sunday’s match against the Kings:
“He’s given us some good moments, don’t get me wrong, he’s just got to get stronger. He’s got to get in shape to compete at this level. This is a big summer for him.”
The problem is that last summer was big for Kravtsov, who came to New York to train starting in early August. I think the winters might be more of an issue for the ninth-overall pick of the 2018 draft, who six months later was ranked as the No. 1 NHL-affiliated prospect by TSN’s Craig Button.
It appears as if Gord Clark wasn’t the only one to miss on this.
