ANAHEIM, CALIF. – Mikko Koivu never liked playing against his older brother, Saku, but it's still weird for the Wild captain to square off against the Ducks and not see that familiar face across the faceoff dot.
Saku Koivu, 40, retired at the end of the 2013-14 season after scoring 832 points in 1,124 games over 18 seasons with the Ducks and Montreal Canadiens, the team he captained for 10 years.
"I never liked playing against him," the Wild captain said. "It was also because he's a center, and I would face him a lot on faceoffs. So I'm very glad we never faced them in the playoffs. I never admitted it at the time, but when it was close two years ago, like within two points with like a game or two left, I was not happy.
"It's like playing your best friend, but even more than that. It's uncomfortable and different."
Mikko outscored Saku in 18 head-to-head meetings 12-7, but Saku's Canadiens and Ducks went 11-3-4 in those games compared to the Wild going 7-10-1 (there's some NHL math for you).
This past summer, Mikko took his brother and father, Jukka, to the British Open at St. Andrews in Scotland as a retirement gift for Saku and Christmas gift for dad.
"We played golf together and saw one day of the Open," Mikko Koivu said. "It was unbelievable. The culture, when you walk into the clubhouse, you could feel that."
Saku Koivu has moved back to Finland with his wife and two children. Mikko says he's trying to figure out what he wants to do next and "has lots of options."
Mikko says since his brother retired, he has even greater appreciation about how good he was.
"I always knew, though," Mikko said. "In Montreal, you get the feeling with how passionate they are about their game and I thought the respect that he had in the city was obvious. That's when I first realized how good he was and the career he had. You look back at how many years he played and what he went through [overcoming non-Hodgkin's lymphoma in 2001-02], it's impressive."
Veterans lead way
Besides Koivu, who entered Sunday's game with a shorthanded goal and power-play goal in consecutive games, Wild coach Mike Yeo has been thrilled by the play of all his veterans, especially defenseman Ryan Suter, who entered Sunday's game with five assists.
"He's been playing very, very well," Yeo said. "Defensively, he's a guy that has the ability to separate guys, I don't want to say easily, but he makes it look easy in D-zone coverage, to hold off two guys, to execute, to make a play.
"He's been getting involved in the rush, getting involved up ice and his execution, his poise with the puck has been huge for us."
Suter is nonchalant about his play thus far.
"I said in training camp, this is the best I've felt in a long time," Suter said.
Blurred lines
After getting his first look at 3-on-3 overtime Friday at Los Angeles, Yeo repeated his training-camp mantra that better line changes are needed.
He wasn't thrilled with Matt Dumba's change before Anze Kopitar's winning goal, and that Jared Spurgeon was hung out to dry in the defensive zone when Yeo felt his two teammates waited too long to change. Spurgeon smartly passed to goalie Darcy Kuemper when pressure came.
"It was back and forth, and you're going to see a lot more of this," Yeo said. "When you have an opportunity, you're going to have to try to pounce on it. But quite often if you miss that opportunity, it's going to lead to something dangerous the other way. That's exactly what we saw the other night."
The Wild juggled its second and third defense pairs Sunday. Marco Scandella was paired with Dumba and Jonas Brodin was paired with Christian Folin.
