FINLAND – The Finnish SM-Liiga started yesterday, with a series of games. Probably the most followed game in the league was between last years’ champions HIFK and Jokerit. Jokerit made a high profile player acquisition just before the start of the season by signing the services of NHL veteran Jarkko Ruutu. Ruutu, who has trained hard the whole summer does appear good few years younger now than he did at the end of the NHL season.
The season opener saw its first goal after 11 seconds of game play, when HPK’s Arsi Piispanen scored against TPS. Piispanen took full advantage of TPS goalie, Marek Schwarz’s mistake behind the net and had an easy job of putting the puck in a nearly empty net.
Schwarz, a 17th overall draft pick by the St. Louis Blues in 2004, didn’t have the best opening night for his new team TPS and didn’t look sharp on several of the goals that were scored past him. Many hockey fans on Twitter were commenting how Schwarz had spent more time laying down on the ice rather than on his feet. HPK won the game 6-3 and saw Alex Leavitt put up stats 2+1, Niko Nieminen 0+2 and Scott Barney 1+1
The team everyone has tipped as the surprise team of the year, Pelicans, also saw action on the opening day. After a stunning pre-season, which saw Pelicans win 12 out of 13 games, Pelicans were the clear favourite going into play last years’ finalist Blues. Pelicans have built a seemingly strong team and hired a solid coach in Kai Suikkanen.
Despite the strong pre season, Blues were the stronger team by taking the win 2-1 from the Pelicans side. Ryan Lasch from the Pelicans scored the first goal of the game midway through the third, but Blues scored twice in the last seven minutes to take the win. Blues goals came from Petri Lammassaari and Teemu Ramstedt.
Kalpa welcomed back its icon Sami Kapanen, who had announced his retirement from playing last year. Kapanen however went back on his decision after sitting out the 2010-2011 season. The team faced JYP and where the two periods of the game were more or less dominated by the fact both teams were trying to find their game feet. Kapanen scored the first goal of the game with only 19 seconds into the third period and the final nail to JYP’s coffin were hammered in by Jyri Junnila. The win was the first career win at the SM-Liiga level for Kalpa’s new head coach, Tuomas Tuokkola.
However, the big match up was the one between Jokerit and HIFK. The start of the game paid tribute to Finnish world champions, Ossi Vaananen (Jokerit), Janne Lahti (Jokerit) and Mikael Granlund (HIFK). Rather ironically, as reported by Veikkaaja editor Esko Seppanen, a few Jokerit supporters greeted Granlund with international hand gestures, despite worshiping the youngster in the world championships.
The media had latched on to the game in a style that was expecting Jarkko Ruutu to level Granlund and see some of the antics that he was known for in the NHL, but Ruutu did just the opposite. Where he got a couple of penalties, he played for his team and played to win, which speaks volumes of his attitude and professionalism. As the season gets older, Ruutu will surely be one of the cornerstones of Jokerit push towards the top.
HIFK didn’t really get into the game from the start. The team seemed a bit sluggish in the first allowing Jokerit to take the lead. Jokerit was more active when it came to hitting and was able to torpedo many of HIFK’s break outs and play making opportunities. Ilari Filppula, who spent last season with Grand Rapids Griffins in the AHL, was on fire getting a goal and two assists in the 5-3 win. Mikael Granlund was the top point getter for HIFK with his two assists.
Contact the author: janne.virtanen@prohockeynews.com
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