Well one of my favourite former Canucks had a big night. A goal and 2 assists. Not bad, not bad at all. I'm sure he's one of the most annoying guys to play against. After all he's always got that smirk on his face sticking out his tongue.
Gotta love the Finnish grit.
They're really like the toughest Europeans. I'm sure he grew up idolizing Essa Tikkanen. For all the skill the Swedes have the Finns have grit and toughness. Ruutu is a fan favourite wherever he goes. He's the player you hate but would love to have on your team.
Ruutu's Career NHL totals:
414 Games
35 Goals
45 Assists
80 Points
and drum roll please...
a whopping 702 Penalty minutes.
So without further ado here are my top 10 Favourite Jarkko Ruutu Moments:
Ruutu handles Rob Blake really well considering he would be fighting outside his weight class.
Ruutu drops F-bombs on the TSN broadcast. He leans over the suicide box in between the benches where Pierre Macguire sits and beaks off at the Montreal bench. They have to kill Pierre's microphone during the play by play because of Ruutu. Priceless.
Jarkko Ruutu outsmarts Dion Phaneuf. He checks him hard pushes his buttons gets him to drop the gloves and slew foots him. Then saunters off to the bench. Brilliant.
Ruutu rocks the "Finnglish" as he throws haymakers against Ben Ondrus. Good solid fight. Shows he dish it out pretty good and is not just a "cheap shot artist".
Ruutu goes toe to toe with Darcy Tucker. Note the Punch counter.
One of his 2 staple shootout moves. Except this one is done on the most exciting play in the game. A penalty shot.
Here's his other shootout move. The slowmotion one hander.
Here's his first shootout move at full speed going top-shelf - where Mama hides the cookie jar!
Ruutu serves up the Subway sandwich of the game. Eat your heart out Jared!
And finally Ruutu has his own theme song. It really doesn't get much better than that.
So number 37 left quite an impression on me. He was a fun player to watch and cheer for. We even made up a game, which was really Marco Polo replaced by the words Jarkko Ruutu. One group of fans would call out "Jarkko" when he laid out a hit and the other fans would reply "Ruutu". Ahhh... the fond memories of a previous Canuck.
