Topic: Teemu Selanne

Teemu Ilmari Selänne (Finnish pronunciation: ) nicknamed "The Finnish Flash" (born July 3, 1970) is a Finnish professional ice hockey player in the National Hockey League (NHL) who plays for the Anaheim Ducks. He won the Stanley Cup with the Anaheim Ducks and holds the NHL's all-time rookie goal and point scoring records (76 and 132 respectively). He was awarded the Calder Memorial Trophy with the Winnipeg Jets, the team in which Selänne was originally drafted into the NHL in the 1st round, 10th overall in the 1988 NHL Entry Draft. Selänne is a ten-time NHL All-Star and a three-time top goal-scorer in the NHL. He is the all-time points leader in men's Olympic ice hockey with 37 points in 31 games. He scored his 600th goal on March 21, 2010 against the Colorado Avalanche.

Selänne played his early seasons with Jokerit of the Finnish SM-liiga. Selänne won the A-Junior level Finnish Championship in 1988 with Jokerit. The team consisted of future SM-liiga players such as Markus Ketterer, Keijo Säilynoja and Mika Strömberg. After three seasons on the junior team of Jokerit, Selänne played his first season for Jokerit during the 1988–89 season when Jokerit played in the Finnish 1. Divisioona. Jokerit gained promotion back to the SM-liiga in 1989 and Selänne had 11 games with 12 points during his debut SM-liiga season. Selänne had his first full season for Jokerit the following year, when he racked up 58 points in 44 games. During the 1991–92 SM-liiga season, Jokerit won the SM-liiga championship and Selänne won the Aarne Honkavaara trophy (top goalscorer) and had the most points scored in the SM-liiga playoffs during that season.

Teemu Selänne was selected by the Winnipeg Jets 10th overall in the 1988 NHL Entry Draft (the last player selected in the first round by Jets general manager John Ferguson, Sr., who was fired four months later) and was contracted by the Jets for the 1992–93 NHL season. Selänne initially asked to wear number 8, however, it was already taken by defenseman Randy Carlyle (Selänne's future coach with the Ducks) in his final playing season; thus Selänne wore number 13 instead. Selänne's first NHL goal came against Jeff Hackett of the San Jose Sharks on October 8, 1992. He went on to score an all-time rookie record of 76 goals in his rookie season (shattering the previous record of 53 set by Mike Bossy), which made him the second European to lead the league in goal scoring (after Jari Kurri), along with Alexander Mogilny, and also makes him one of only eight players, and to date, the last player (along with Mogilny) to have scored 70 or more goals in one NHL season. The rookie season, for which Selänne was awarded the Calder Memorial Trophy for the player selected as the most proficient in his first year of competition in the NHL, saw him also becoming the holder-to-date of the rookie point scoring record with 132 points.