Jere Lehtinen’s third gold was one win away.
With the captain of the lions Valtteri in Filppula has the opportunity to rise this weekend to a rare group that can be reached by winning the Stanley Cup, Olympic gold and world championships.
Filppula would be the first Finn to get into this “three-gold club”. The opportunity for Finns to enter opened up when the Lions won the first Olympic gold in their history last February in Beijing.
The club was founded in February 1994 when it received its first members. At that time, in a Swedish shirt, Olympic gold for the celebration About Tomas Jonsson, Mats from Näslund and Håkan Loobista came the first of all three championship winners.
Today, the club has a total of 29 players and one coach. Of the members, 12 are Canadians, 9 are Swedes, 7 are Russians and 2 are Czechs.
Filppula won the Stanley Cup at the start of his long NHL career in the spring of 2008. At the time, 24-year-old Filppula was playing second-hand in the experienced Detroit Red Wings. Johan Franzénin and a club member Mikael Samuelsson in the middle.
Only three players in the club have won all championships at least twice. These are Swedish legends Peter Forsberg and Russian greatness Vyacheslav Fetisov and Igor Larionov.
In addition to Filppula, Finns have become the closest to the club Jere Lehtinen and Petteri Lindbohm.
As a player, Lehtinen has the 1995 World Cup gold and the spring 1999 Stanley Cup in his prize cabinet. Lehtinen won the Olympic gold in the winter of 2006.
Lindbohm, for his part, has celebrated World Cup gold in the Lions in spring 2019 and Olympic gold in Beijing.
Valtteri Filppula aims to rise to a three-gold club. Jussi Saarinen