Koskinen to wear #19

For all of those fans who turned your Justin Schultz jerseys into Patrick Maroon jerseys, I have great news for you. You don’t have to let your Maroon jersey sit there collecting dust anymore, as you can now transition your #19 into a Mikko Koskinen jersey! The big guy has decided to use the same number he wore in the KHL and will now be representing the number 19 on his Oilers jersey this season.

I’m a huge fan of this and really excited about it. When was the last time a goalie wore a non-tradiitional goalie number? From my very limited research, this is what I could wrangle together:

And now, Mikko Koskinen. Bryzgalov was the most recent Oilers goaltender to wear something other than 1, 30, 31, etc.. so it will be nice to see something different in the mix. What makes this even more hilarious is that Justin Schultz and Patrick Maroon were the most recent players to rep the number. A goalie wearing an unordinary number absolutely has no significance to anything in life, but at the same time, it seems so daring and ballsy to go outside the norm. I’m curious to see the fan reaction from this.

Whether he wears number 19 or number 97, all that matters is that Mikko makes the most of his one year contract with the club. A bigger problem we have on our hands isn’t his jersey number, but how the coaching staff is going to utilize Koskinen this year with his $2.5 million contract.