Mika Noronen’s derailed career a cautionary tale about the Buffalo Sabres and three goalies

As it happened during his hockey career, Mika Noronen just disappeared.

He was a blue-chipper, rated by NHL Central Scouting the best European goaltender in the 1997 draft. The Buffalo Sabres took him in the first round. He won his debut in relief of Dominik Hasek. The Hockey News named Noronen its top pro prospect an unprecedented two years in a row.

Advertisement

But the Sabres couldn’t figure out what to do with him. Then he couldn’t figure out what to do with himself.

Buffalo flubbed its asset. With veteran Martin Biron’s experience and Ryan Miller’s quick ascension, Noronen was squeezed aside in a three-way goalie logjam. The Sabres kept all of them on the 2005-06 roster, refusing to trade Noronen for less than peak value.

So, for months, he rotted.

The Sabres eventually traded Noronen to the Vancouver Canucks for a second-round draft choice. He played four more games and, after Vancouver signed Roberto Luongo that offseason, Noronen bitterly bolted for Russia, never to play in the NHL again.

“It was a strange ending for him,” Noronen’s agent, Jay Grossman said.

Given his ruinous circumstance, The Athletic wondered if Noronen held opinions about the current Sabres’ overpopulated crease and if he’d like to impart any advice about avoiding the same mistakes that wasted him.

Except nobody knew where Noronen was.

After the NHL, he played nine more seasons in Russia, Sweden, Germany, Switzerland and his native Finland before retiring in 2016. After that, however, he vanished.

Biron had no clue where Noronen went. Neither did Grossman nor former goalie coach Jim Corsi. Sabres alumni relations director Larry Playfair had no contact information for Noronen and checked with the NHL’s alumni people. No, they’d lost him too.

As it turns out, Noronen is not hiding. He just hasn’t been around. He went through some dark times and hadn’t felt compelled to stay in touch or return to the place where his NHL dreams first blossomed and eventually shriveled.

But he says he’s doing better now, and on a recent Sunday morning was sipping coffee in his condo and ready to talk about his miserable ending and what he sees happening today with Buffalo goalie trio: Devon Levi, Eric Comrie and countryman Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen.

Advertisement

“I suffered from it,” Noronen said. “That’s why I’m hoping they don’t do the same thing in Buffalo this year. This situation is not good for anyone, as a player or the organization.

“I hope they make decisions for these guys so they don’t need to go through the same s— I did.”

Where is he? What is he doing with himself these days?

Selling real estate in the United Arab Emirates, of course. He lives in Ras al-Khaimah, about 45 minutes outside Dubai.

“No kidding,” Corsi said through laughter. “Oh, my goodness. What a place.”

“Wow,” Grossman said. “I wouldn’t have guessed that.”

The desert is an apt metaphor for Noronen’s career. He could see his career unfolding with the Sabres while dominating the AHL and mixing in little successes when summoned from the Rochester Americans for spot duty. When the Sabres drafted him, general manager Darcy Regier compared his size and style to that of Sean Burke, an occasional Vezina Trophy runner-up while playing 820 career games. At the end of the 2002-03 season, Sabres coach Lindy Ruff acknowledged Noronen “has made a case to be the guy” for 2003-04.

Noronen found all the hype and praise to be a mirage. Ruff later would admit Noronen unfairly didn’t get the same opportunities as Miller and Biron that training camp and preseason.

Instead, Noronen gathered dust. Eventually, when the Sabres no longer knew what to do with him, he evaporated like a bead of sweat off a Bedouin’s brow.

“I didn’t miss hockey for a long while because of the way my career went.” Noronen said. “When I quit, I thought it should have gone a different way. I felt not satisfied. I didn’t want to even watch hockey or think about it.”

He’s 44 now and contemplative. He doesn’t blame the Sabres as much as he does himself, but you can still hear the groaning ache in his voice. He hasn’t been able to bring himself back to Buffalo to see old friends and teammates, but he’s working on that.

Advertisement

A player can deal with only so much frustration before he loses his joy for the game.

“He had everything you needed to be an NHL goalie,” Corsi said. “He worked hard enough. He was technically sound enough.

“But the opportunity, the lockout, the logjam of goalies … It’s not a bad career, but would you have liked to have a bigger and better career? God, I wish he could have.”

Noronen was part of the Finnish goalie wave. NHL clubs were increasingly enamored with them. Miikka Kiprusoff and Vesa Toskala were drafted in 1995. Noronen and Jani Hurme were in the 1997 class. Antero Niittymaki, Pasi Nurminen, Jussi Markkanen and Kari Lehtonen soon followed.

European goalies, though, had a harder time convincing some scouts they had the chops. Junior and U.S. college programs afford much more intimate evaluation. Decades of familiarity with that competition level shape opinions more easily. European players sometimes must prove more.

“Those early Finnish goalies were, in a sense, pioneers,” said Grossman, whose firm represented luminaries Pekka Rinne and Nicklas Backstrom. “The bar for entry for Europeans was difficult.”

Even, apparently, for the organization that watched Hasek trash orthodoxy on a nightly basis.

Noronen’s first impression about NHL opportunities gave him whiplash. He went 3-0 with a 0.85 goals against average in the 2000 preseason and made the final roster while Biron was in a contract dispute. Hasek hurt his knee injury in the opener. Noronen won in relief and then won his first start two nights later. But the Sabres didn’t trust him and added 27-year-old vagabond Peter Skudra off waivers.

Perhaps naive at 21, Noronen felt slighted by the decision. But it wouldn’t be the last time.

“When you’re young, you’re not afraid of anything,” Noronen said. “I came from winning and winning and winning and not having any setbacks to getting a chance and winning both games they put me in, and then they send me away. Hasek got well, and Biron signed. That’s when I realized, ‘This is a different thing.’ That’s how the NHL works, but it’s also a ‘What if?’ “

Advertisement

Next offseason, Hasek forced a trade to the Detroit Red Wings. Rather than let Biron and Noronen handle the 2001-02 goaltending, the Sabres again showed they didn’t trust Noronen.

Buffalo signed 37-year-old Bob Essensa as the backup, but he was too awful to use. Biron played 72 games, keeping Noronen cemented in Rochester.

“The third year playing in the AHL, it was, like, ‘Oh, my god. What am I still doing here?’ I felt it,” Noronen said. “I could see it in my results.

“You don’t have the spark in your eyes anymore. I thought, ‘Why don’t I just go home then? I’ll go over there, and you call me when you need me.’ I never got over it.”

Miller arrived in 2002-03. He left Michigan State a year early and reported to Sabres camp, giving them three goalies between 22 and 25 years old, all on two-year contracts.

Miller was the one earmarked for Rochester this time. Ruff wanted to replicate the Minnesota Wild’s effective Manny Fernandez-Dwayne Roloson rotation with Biron and Noronen. That didn’t pan out, not when Noronen started 0-6-1 with a 3.54 GAA and an .865 save percentage. But in March and April, he went 9-3-2 with a 1.74 GAA and a .939 save percentage.

“Ryan and Marty each had more stellar junior careers,” Corsi said, “and it was so much harder to figure out who we were going to keep because they were all in and around the same age.

“Mika had that modern body. He was tall, athletic, strong. Marty and Ryan were skinny kids. I remember saying to Darcy they have to run around in the shower to get wet. There were questions if they could carry the load long term.”

Noronen’s busiest season was 2003-04. He played 35 games. He didn’t allow more than three goals until January, by then going 9-10-1 for a bankrupt franchise, but with a 1.99 GAA, a .927 save percentage and two shutouts. He finished poorly, however, losing seven of his last 10 decisions and allowing at least six goals in three of his last four games.

Advertisement

Noronen made fun history that season. Facing an extra attacker in the final minutes, Toronto Maple Leafs center Robert Reichel tried to center a pass from behind the cage to the point, but it went all the way down the Air Canada Center ice and into the empty net. Noronen was the last Sabre to touch the puck, making him the eighth NHL goalie to score a goal.

#OTD in 2004, the same game that goalie Mika Noronen is credited with a goal for the Buffalo Sabres, J.P. Dumont scores the 9,000th goal in Buffalo Sabres history in the Sabres 6-4 win over Toronto.

— ThisDateInBuffaloSportsHistory (@BuffSportsHstry) February 14, 2022

“I still have the puck,” Noronen said. “I still get fan mail from people who collect cards and autographs from goalies who scored the goal.

“The team presented me with a frame that has the score sheet and the puck, but I haven’t put it on the wall. I still want to put all my jerseys and things like this from my career on a wall, but it seems when you have children you don’t find the time for that.”

The 2004-05 NHL lockout wiped out Noronen’s last best chance with Buffalo because Miller and a slew of other youngsters spent the winter congealing into the Sabres’ future.

Miller would not be denied, and Biron now possessed that experience Buffalo’s front office and coaching staff coveted, whereas Noronen didn’t get a full chance to accumulate games.

“Before the lockout, I was pushing myself to be a starting goalie,” Noronen said. “But when I came back from the lockout, I was their third goalie and that was it.

“I needed to use that window that I had better than I did. I cannot blame anybody for that. It’s not always about fairness. I can’t say they made the wrong choice with Miller. Maybe I was just in the wrong spot at the wrong time.”

Advertisement

Miller started 2005-06 opening night. Biron was the clear backup. Noronen barely got any action in the preseason, but Buffalo chose to hold onto him. He no longer could be sent to Rochester without clearing waivers.

The Sabres’ dressing room at the time had room for only two goaltender stalls. Miller and Biron got those, forcing Noronen to dress by himself down the hall. After practice, he would scrape together as many willing regulars, black aces and rehabbing skaters as possible for extra work to stay sharp.

When Miller broke his right thumb in late October, there was no opening. Biron became a workhorse. He started slow but then won 13 straight games. Noronen, meanwhile, played four times while Miller was out.

“I went to Darcy directly and not through my agent and said, ‘Please, let me go,’ ” Noronen said. “Two days before the trade deadline, he looked me in the eye and said, ‘Mika, you’re not going anywhere.’ They wanted to keep Miller for sure, so I don’t know what their plan was.”

Regier finally acquiesced at the deadline and sent Noronen to Vancouver for a 2006 second-round draft choice Buffalo used on goalie Jhonas Enroth.

Noronen played four games for Vancouver, but he thought he had a home. Veteran netminders Alex Auld and Dan Cloutier were on their way out. But then the Canucks traded for Luongo, the future Hall of Famer.

Vancouver retained Noronen’s rights by extending a $695,000, two-way qualifying offer. He refused to sign it.

“I wasn’t going to play more than 20 games,” Noronen said. “My road was blocked to the NHL at the moment. I said ‘F— it’ and left for Russia. One year of that bull— was enough.

“I needed a new start. I needed to play. I wanted to enjoy my life. I’m good at what I do, and I wanted to use what I had.”

After three seasons in Russia, Noronen bounced from team to team, country to country. A season in Sweden, four in Finland (a drop down to second tier, back up to the majors), over to Switzerland, then Germany, back to Finland, back to Sweden.

Advertisement

All along the way, he lamented how on earth he never prospered — or truly got an extended chance — despite all that NHL promise.

“When you talk with guys who’ve been in the game a long time,” said Corsi, “they’ll tell you: When you lose hope, it can take a piece out of you.”

Said Grossman: “Sometimes, you wonder if it’s really worth it to battle, when, if you’d just been given the chance to run with it, you would have passed the test or failed. I don’t think he ever really got that test.”

Noronen looks back now with a degree of regret. One season with Ak Bars Kazan was necessary, he said. The second season might have been what cost him another NHL opportunity.

There was interest, he recalled, from the Sabres to re-sign him as Miller’s backup after trading Biron to the Philadelphia Flyers in February 2007.

“Maybe I should have come back to the best league when I had a chance, but I decided to stay,” Noronen said. “That was my worst hockey decision. If I would have come back, the story would have been different.”

It was not, however, a bad life decision.

He met his second wife in Russia. They have an 11-year-old daughter and two sons, ages 6 and 4. He has a 19-year-old daughter from his first marriage.

Had he not played in Russia, he also probably would not have been introduced to UAE. That’s when he was convinced to invest in a retirement home on the Arabian Peninsula. After selling log cabins in Finland, he recently moved operations to UAE and established Noronen Properties, a firm that sells land, luxury villas and apartments around Dubai and Ras al-Khaimah.

“It’s funny,” Noronen said. “Even eight years after I stopped playing, I still have dreams about it. One morning, I was late for practice in Buffalo. I overslept. The rest of that season, every morning before the alarm went off, I would jump from my bed in a panic.

Advertisement

“I still wake up and think ‘F—, am I late?’ Then I realize I don’t play hockey anymore. You live that life for 20 years, it’s hard to get away from it. I also dream about good things, about winning. Those things just stay in you.”

After many years of trying to blot hockey from his mind, Noronen said he misses the sport again. He now checks the NHL scores every morning, monitors how Buffalo’s goaltenders are doing and tries to imagine how they’re coping on a three-man depth chart. Noronen can put himself in their pads rather vividly.

Buffalo’s current situation isn’t exactly the same as what Noronen endured.

Miller went straight from Michigan State to the AHL, whereas Levi left Northeastern University to become the Sabres’ opening-night starter.

Comrie is 28, the same age Biron was at the dawn of that magical 2005-06 season, but is not nearly as experienced as Biron was and doesn’t hold nearly the trade value.

Luukkonen is 24, two years younger than Noronen was when the Sabres finally dealt him — probably two years too late.

“I’ve been following how it’s been going,” Noronen said, “and now it seems Ukko-Pekka is in the same situation I was in 20 years ago. I would just tell him to keep his head up and tell them all to support each other.

“You’re all good enough. Just keep pushing. That’s the only thing you can do and hope that management makes a decision soon enough to let one go because you all belong and deserve the chance.”

(Photo: Rick Stewart / Getty Images)