Arto Markus Laatikainen (born May 24, 1980) is a Finnish professional

ice hockey Ice hockey (or simply hockey) is a team sport played on ice skates, usually on an Ice rink, ice skating rink with Ice hockey rink, lines and markings specific to the sport. It belongs to a family of sports called hockey. In ice hockey, two o ...

defenceman Defence or defense (in American English) in ice hockey is a player position that is primarily responsible for preventing the opposing team from scoring. They are often referred to as defencemen, D, D-men or blueliners (the latter a reference t ...

. He is currently playing with HPK of the Finnish

Liiga The SM-liiga (marketed as just Liiga from 2013 on), (Finnish for ''League'') colloquially called the Finnish Elite League in English or FM-ligan in Swedish, is the top professional ice hockey league in Finland. It is one of the six founding leagu ...

. Laatikainen was selected by the

New York Rangers The New York Rangers are a professional ice hockey team based in the New York City borough of Manhattan. They compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Metropolitan Division in the Eastern Conference. The team plays its ho ...

in the 7th round (197th overall) of the

1999 NHL Entry Draft The 1999 NHL Entry Draft was the 37th NHL Entry Draft. It was held on June 26 at the FleetCenter in Boston. According to ''Sports Illustrated'' and other sports news agencies, at the time the 1999 draft was considered one of the deepest in talen ...

. Laatikainen played the 2013-14 season for hometown club, Espoo Blues in the

. He played 614 league games for Espoo Blues, which is more than any other player ever played for the team.

Notable awards and honours

*2007-08:

Pekka Rautakallio trophy The Pekka Rautakallio trophy is an ice hockey award given by the Finnish Liiga to the best defenceman of the season. In 1995 the award was renamed to carry the name of its first winner Pekka Rautakallio. In 2019 it was awarded to Oliwer Kaski o ...

for best defenceman of the season in the

SM-liiga The SM-liiga (marketed as just Liiga from 2013 on), (Finnish for ''League'') colloquially called the Finnish Elite League in English or FM-ligan in Swedish, is the top professional ice hockey league in Finland. It is one of the six founding leagu ...

Career statistics

Regular season and playoffs

International

References

External links

* 1980 births Living people Espoo Blues players Färjestad BK players JYP Jyväskylä players New York Rangers draft picks Södertälje SK players Finnish ice hockey defencemen Sportspeople from Espoo {{Finland-icehockey-defenceman-stub