FINLAND – The Finnish hockey summer wouldn’t be a hockey summer if there wasn’t any speculation over one man and his future. Other than that, the summer has been a time of great anticipation for the Finns, particularly because the season officially ended in a high with Finland being crowned world champions in Slovakia. While many of the SM-Liiga towns have hosted parties for their home-grown world champions, the teams have been busy putting their rosters together. The man whose future was referred to in the first paragraph is of course The Finnish Flash, Teemu Selanne. Since the Ducks’ empathic Stanley Cup win, the media has held its breath and covered stories of Teemu Selanne and whether his illustrious career will carry on, or if he is going to hang them up. Selanne, who underwent knee surgery this summer is an icon in Finnish hockey to the point that one news outlet put up three stories in just as many minutes, mainly regurgitating stories from the previous week. You can follow the Selanne saga through twitter under the hash tag #SelanneWatch. Perhaps the favourite to go into the season is the 2010-2011 champions HIFK. Where the team lost an iconic player in Lennart Petrell to the Edmonton Oilers, the team has kept most of its core together, including the veteran Ville Peltonen. One of the interesting additions to the HIFK Markus Granlund. The 18-yearold showed great skill in last season’s Junior SM-Liiga and was drafted in the second round of the 2011 Entry Draft by the Calgary Flames.
HIFK of course retain Mikael Granlund for at least another season. Granlund’s summer has been a busy one. Since winning the SM-Liiga with HIFK, he played was part of Team Finland’s gold medal team. Ever since Granlund scored the 1-0 goal against Russia in the semi-final the young Finn has been on a wild rollercoaster ride. He had media cover his first day in the Finnish armed forces as he entered his national service, he has been linked to many women in the media, his goal was turned into a stamp quicker than one opens a letter and his trip to the Minnesota Wild prospects camp was under magnifying glass. Where Granlund himself has admitted that the attention from his stunning goal against Russia has gone over the top at times, he has remained adamant that no matter how nice the goal, it is still just one goal. In an interview Granlund actually rated his off the boards pass to Janne Pesonen’s 4-1 goal in the Final over the semi-final goal. Throughout the attention that has been guided at Granlund, the 19-year old has remained down to earth and one can only hope that his skates stay firmly on the ice and that he is able to cope with the way people will be following his every stride. Other top junior prospects to keep an eye out for include Jokerit forwards Teemu Pulkkinen and Alexander Ruuttu (son of former NHLer Christian Ruuttu). Also Porin Assat have their young gun Joel Armia, who was drafted in the first round by the Buffalo Sabres. Perhaps one of the most interesting teams to watch this year will be Lahden Pelicans. Since acquiring coach, Kai Suikkanen, the team has undergone a big revamp in terms of players. Pelicans have a few gold medal winners in its ranks too in Niko Hovinen and assistant coach Pasi Nurminen. Pelicans have also acquired Max Warn from HIFK’s championship winning team to bolster its roster along with imports Justin Hodgman (from Toronto Marlies) and Ryan Lasch. As a side note Ryan Lasch and Pelicans goalie and Philadelphia Fylers prospect, Niko Hovinen are having a budding bromance on Twitter. You can follow the guys through @Lascher19 and @NikoHovinen32 . Pelicans have been strong in the pre-season, winning the annual Pitsi Turnaus in Rauma and at the time of writing has been undefeated in its pre-season games. The latest team to fall to Pelicans was KHL’s Dynamo from Riga. If Pelicans can keep the form up it would be a great transformation from a team that last year was fighting for its survival in the SM-Liiga, though the season is long. The SM-Liiga teams have also been showing encouraging pace at the European Trophy tournament. The six SM-Liiga teams participating (HIFK, Jokerit, Kalpa, Karpat, Tappara and TPS), HIFK and Jokerit are closely following the Swedish side Djurgardens IF in the North Division . In the East Division KalPa is bearing down on the top sitter HC Slovan Bratislava. TPS currently sits third in the West Division and Tappara is in last place in the same division. Statistics wise, the top spot belongs to Jokerit forward Ilari Filppula, who returned from Grand Rapids in the AHL to his native Finland. In four games for Jokerit Filppula has scored three goals and added five assists. Filppula isn’t the only big name player returning to the SM-Liiga. Former Toronto Maple Leafs starter Vesa Toskala has also signed in the SM-Liiga for Tampereen Ilves. Toskala was a product of the Ilves system and Ilves will be looking to him and his experience to carry the team for the season. Remember last year, Ilves played up-beat hockey through a relatively young team and will start the season as underdogs. The season officially starts on the 15th of September with the following fixtures: HPK-TPS, Jokerit-HIFK, JYP-KalPa, Pelicans – Blues, SaiPa- Karpat. As a side note, if the NHL broadcasting rights mess will be sorted out by then, the NHL season will once again kick off in Helsinki with the Anaheim Ducks facing The Buffalo Sabres. Both teams have blue and white colours in the rosters with Ducks icing Saku Koivu and Tony Lydman (Selanne is obviously a question mark at this stage) whilst the Sabres will have Ville Leino on the ice. Until the 15th of September, many Finnish hockey fans will be asking whether we could drop the puck already. Contact the author: janne.virtanen@prohockeynews.com Or on Twitter: @amateur_hockey
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