Ville Meskanen knows what the Rangers were looking for: a sniper
New York Rangers signed 22-year-old Finnish winger Ville Meskanen to a two-year ELC contract in Thursday. The Tampere native says the choice was quite easy to make in the end.
– There was interest from multiple teams, but in the end there were three teams from which to choose. Rangers was relatively easy choice after all. I have best chances to play in the NHL there.
Chances to play in the NHL weren’t the only factor for the young forward.
– Of course it was also important how the handled the whole thing. One could see that they really wanted me, it made the decision easy to make.
Rangers had scouted the late-blooming Meskanen for a while already.
– They said that they had followed me for a while and had multiple reports on me. They knew what kind of player I was, and that’s what they wanted: a goal-scoring sniper.
Meskanen, who has played his whole career in his home-town team Ilves so far, hasn’t ever been particularly a Rangers fan, but he appreciates the club highly.
– Rangers has always been a team that I’ve followed closely. It is one of the biggest and greatest teams out there after all.
– I have always thought, that it would be great to play in the Madison Square Garden. It has always been a young boy’s dream to play in a place like that.
Meskanen was invited for Team Finland’s preparation camp for the IIHF World Championships, but was cut from the team after three games. The reason for dropping out of team was clear.
– The coaches said, that I should’ve been more productive. I understand it fully, you can’t get a fourth-line grinder out of me even if you wanted. A pity that I couldn’t be more productive and I didn’t make it further with the national team.
Meskanen is not yet sure when he will travel to New York for the first time.
– There were talks that I would go there and see the facilities etc., but nothing’s sure yet. I’ll go to the rookie camp anyway in July.
The interview was first published in Finnish in Kiekkoareena.
Ville Meskanen