According to Urheilu, Sami Niku does not want to continue in the ranks of JYP after last week’s events.
The JYP defender dropped from the playing lineup on Saturday Sami Niku wants to terminate his contract with the club, according to Urheilu. Negotiations on terminating the contract are supposed to start at the beginning of the week.
The saga started with Friday’s match against HIFK. New head coach at the time Mikko Heiskanen so to speak, benched Niku. After the match, according to Urheilu’s information, the player was not told the reason for being dropped from the rotation. Instead, after the game, the player received a message on his phone telling him not to come to the hall on Saturday.
Niku followed the instructions and therefore did not travel with the rest of the team to Mikkeli, where JYP already lost its ninth consecutive match. JYP have lost all their matches since the club fired the head coach Jukka Rautakorvin and assistant coach Ville Nieminen on the 20th of December.
New head coach Mikko Heiskanen shrugged already after a couple of weeks by publicly criticizing his key players exceptionally strongly after the Kärpät defeat at the beginning of January.
– When you look at these players who demanded more, they were not worthy to have earned more. I’m worried about our top right now. The demands are tough, but you are not ready to bring anything to the field. Those who don’t demand anything and press on with their work every day, they are able to bring it to the field, Heiskanen stated.
According to ‘s information, the club’s top players did not greet the head coach’s exit with joy, and the situation had also been discussed within the team.
According to ‘s information, Niku had been offered a longer and significantly more valuable extension contract in the preliminary discussions between the player and the club, but after the latest events, the player wants out of the club.
Sami Niku has been the most effective defender in the SM league season with 37 (11+26) power points. Niku is a JYP graduate who, before returning to Jyväskylä, played in the NHL for Winnipeg and Montreal for 67 games. In the 2017-2018 season, Niku was chosen as the farm league AHL defender of the year.