Film Room: How Ville Koivunen's second half put him back on a top-nine track

Ville Koivunen's campaign has been a tale of two seasons.

Forced to return to Kärpät by the Carolina Hurricanes' absence of an AHL affiliate, the initial expectations were set high for Koivunen. But while he scored at a decent pace during the first half of the season, those expectations weren't exactly met. Not until the team made a coaching change in late December, replacing Lauri Marjamäki with Ville Mäntymaa who had coached Koivunen during his draft year at the U20 level.

That's when Koivunen's stock started to trend in the right direction.

From Dec 18, when Kärpät made their coaching change, to the end of the regular season, Koivunen led the entire Liiga in scoring, ramping up his production from 0.73 points per game to 1.17 points per game. It didn't take long for the Hurricanes to capit