He Will Finnish as The Greatest

On March 12th against the Colorado Avalanche, Teemu Selanne surpassed Jari Kurri's total points and became the highest scoring Finnish hockey player in NHL history. Selanne notched his 1399th point in  his NHL career.

The 41 year old native of Helsinki, Finland was drafted 10th overall by the Winnipeg Jets in the 1988 NHL entry draft. After he was drafted, he continued playing in Finland, one more year on Jokerit Jr Team in the Finnish Junior League and then three years on Jokerit in the SM-Liiga.

Selanne came over to play with the Winnipeg Jets in 1992, where he had arguably the best rookie season ever by an NHL player. In 84 games, Teemu Selanne scored 76 goals along with 56 assists for 132 points. His goal total in his rookie year is tied for 5th most all time with Alexander Mogilny. Teemu Selanne played with the Winnipeg Jets for four years amassing 306 points in 231 games, averaging 1.3 points per game over that span.

On February 7th, 1996, Selanne was packaged along with Marc Chouinard and a 4th round pick and was controversially traded to Anaheim in exchange for Chad Kilger, Oleg Tverdosky and a 3rd round pick. Selanne was very angered how management dealt with him in his final year with the Jets as he was told multiple times that he was not going to be traded. He as able to fully understand the situation once he was in Anaheim and he quickly got over the past problems that were in Winnipeg.

Selanne played in Anaheim from the 1996-97 season until the 2000-01 season. His most productive year on the Ducks came in his second year there when he collected 51 goals and 58 assists for 109 points in 78 games. Over the 6 seasons he played in Anahiem, Selanne had 482 points. He was traded out of Anaheim at the trade deadline on March 5th, 2001 to the San Jose Sharks in exchange for Jeff Friesen, Steve Shields and a 2nd round pick. He played 12 games that season for the Sharks after he was traded there and he collected 13 points in 12 games. He continued to play two more seasons in with the Sharks while getting 54 and 64 points respectively. He had a total of 131 points while he was on the Sharks.

Selanne began a unrestricted free agent and was signed by the Colorado Avalanche to rejoin with longtime teammate in Anaheim, Paul Kariya. He had an extremely disappointing season, as the chemistry between Kariya and himself just wasn't there in Colorado. He only had 32 points that season.

The next year was the NHL lockout of 2004-05, most players were not very happy about the NHL lockout but it was the best thing that could have happened for Teemu Selanne. He did sign a contract with his old team in the SM-Liiga; Jokerit but he was unable to play that year. Selanne had much needed knee surgery and rehabilitation took longer than expected. Having the year off a great thing for Teemu as he was able to fully recover and be back to his normal self and not have to miss any time away from the NHL.

With his knee-rehabilitated he entered the 2005-06 season once again as an Anaheim Duck as he signed a one year contract during the summer prior to the season. That season, Selanne scored 40 times while adding 50 assists for a total of 90 points. He hit the milestone of 1000 points on January 30th, 2006 against the Los Angeles Kings becoming only the 7th European player to do so.

He has stayed with the Ducks since the 2005-06 season and he is playing incredible hockey. Teemu now has scored 659 times and has 740 assists for 1399 points in 1329 NHL career games.

The Finn has set a tough mark for another of his fellow countrymen to try to break someday. Selanne is now 19th on the NHL all-time scoring list.

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