Toni Söderholm

Toni Kristian Söderholm (born on April 14, 1978 in Kauniainen) is a retired Finnish professional ice hockey defenceman, currently the head coach of the German National Team.

Club career
Söderholm began his junior career with the HIFK organisation.

In 1995 - 1997 played Söderholm with the Trinity College School of the CAHS.

In the 1997-98 season played Söderholm again with the HIFK organisation.

In 1998 - 2002 played Söderholm with the UMass of the NCAA. In all four seasons, he was selected into the NCAA (Hockey East) All-Academic Team.

After that, Söderholm spent three seasons with the HIFK of the SM-liiga. In the 2002-03 season, he was named the SM-liiga Rookie of the Year as he was the rookie with most assists (15) in the SM-liiga. In the 2003-04 season, he won the Pekka Rautakallio Award for the SM-liiga's best defenceman and made it into the SM-liiga All-Star Team.

Next two season played Söderholm with the SC Bern of the NLA.

In the 2007-08 season played Söderholm with the Frölunda HC of the Elitserien. He also played there most of the 2008-09 season but after 36 games played, he moved to the HIFK of the SM-liiga and finished there the season with 7 regular season games and 2 play-off games played.

Söderholm then continued with the HIFK of the SM-liiga (later Liiga) for next six seasons. In the 2010-11 season, Söderholm became the SM-liiga champion and won the Jari Kurri Award for the SM-liiga's best player in the play-offs as he had the best plus/minus (+10) among all players in the play-offs and was the defenceman who recorded most goals (4) in the play-offs and most points (10) in the play-offs. In the 2011-12 season, Söderholm was selected into the SM-liiga All-Star Team and won the Matti Keinonen Trophy for the player with the best plus/minus (+31) in the SM-liiga. In this season he was also the SM-liiga's best defenceman in plus/minus (+31), in recorded assists (39) and points (47).

In 2015, Söderholm moved to the EHC München of the DEL for his last career season in which he became the DEL champion.

International career
Söderholm played with the Finnish National Team at the 2004, 2005 and 2007 World Championship s (winning silver at the 2007 tournament).

As the coach, he represented Germany at the 2017 and 2019 World Junior Championships Division IA (winning silver at the 2017 tournament and gold at the 2019 tournament), 2019 and 2021 World Championship s and at the 2020 World Junior Championship.

Coach career
As the coach, he became the DEL champion in the 2016-17 and 2017-18 seasons and in the 2017-18 season he was also named the DEL2 Coach of the Year.