Selanne becomes top career Olympic scorer

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Ducks winger Teemu Selanne said he has never paid much attention to career milestones.

‘I’ve never been a big record guy or number guy,’ the high-scoring right wing said. But the Olympic record he broke Friday night was impossible to ignore.

Selanne’s second-period assist in Finland’s 5-0 preliminary-round victory over Germany gave him 37 points in five Olympic hockey tournaments, breaking the record of 36 that he had shared since Wednesday with Canada’s Harry Watson, Czechoslovakia’s Vlastimil Bubnik and Russia’s Valeri Kharlamov.

He made a cross-ice pass to Sami Salo, who relayed the puck to Kimmo Timonen for a blast that snaked through a crowd in front of the net and gave Finland a 3-0 lead. The assist was his 17th in Olympic competition, to go with 20 goals.

‘That was one thing that we wanted to get tonight, to get a point for him to get sole possession of first on that list,’ said Saku Koivu, his longtime linemate on Finland’s national team and this season with the Ducks. ‘You look at those guys and it’s amazing. When they played back in the day that was pretty to watch so I’m really happy for him.’

Selanne, 39, said he never expected to break the scoring record and that while he appreciates the moment he’s not about to stop and admire his accomplishments just yet.

‘I think it’s going to be a bigger thing one day when I’m done playing hockey and I can look back at what I have done in my career,’ he said. ‘I played a long time in these Olympics -- five times, and always with great players like Saku and Jere [Lehtinen] and those things make this possible.’

Next up for Finland (2-0) is Sweden, also 2-0 and the defending Olympic champion because of its victory over Finland in the gold medal game at Turin.

‘It’s funny,’ Selanne said. ‘I don’t know one bad Swedish guy but I want to beat them as a team. They’re like big brothers and you always want to beat your big brother.’

-- Helene Elliott in Vancouver, Canada