FINLAND, – Despite a busy and eventful league round in the SM-Liiga, the main news however is the tragic loss of a Finnish hockey icon. Arto Javanainen passed away after a long illness on Tuesday. Javanainen is known as one of the best scorers to grace the Finnish leagues and held the top point scoring record until Janne Ojanen broke his record two years ago. Javanainen still retains some 20 SM-Liiga scoring records. Javanainen played 20 seasons in the SM-Liiga and amassed 668 games and scored 465 goals and 330 assists. Javanainen’s achievements include two SM-Liiga championships, three silvers and one bronze. He played for Team Finland in two World Championships and one in the Olympic Winter Games. Javanainen is a Finnish hockey lion number 121. He also spent a season in the NHL in the Penguins organisation. Javanainen is survived by his wife and two children. He was 51-years-old. SM-Liiga will respect Javanainen’s life and achievements in all matches on Friday and Saturday with a moment’s silence before each games’ opening face-off. News From around the league Meanwhile TPS got its first win under Jukka Koivu’s reign by defeating HPK 4-0. Despite the win, Koivu said in a press conference that he was far from happy with his teams’ performance. “We played for 20 minutes today. I’m surprised it was enough for a win,” Koivu said. “With as many penalties as we took, we have no chance of winning games in the future. The fact is that if we continue to play like this, we won’t win any games.” As if TPS’ season hadn’t been woeful enough, it received news that one of its core defenders in Steve McCarthy has been sidelined till the end of season with a undisclosed injury. McCarthy has played 32 games this season with no goals or assists but is one of the few TPS players whose +/- statistics are on the plus side. Meanwhile in Oulu, Karpat felt the bite of its own when it faced HIFK. Both Mikael Granlund and former Karpat defence man Jeff Hamilton played a big part in HIFK’s 3-1 win. Granlund is a product of the Karpat junior system prior to his controversial move to HIFK and Hamilton played for Karpat last season. Granlund ended up tying the game, while Hamilton was instrumental in setting up the game winning goal for HIFK. Jokerit have announced that they have extended the contract of prospect Teemu Pulkkinen by further two years. The contract has an option for Pulkkinen to leave for the NHL in the middle of his contract. Jokerit have expressed its keenness to keep Pulkkinen for the contract length, suggesting that it would be best for his development as a player. Pulkkinen was drafted by the Detroit Redwings in 2009 as 111th overall. At the same time, there has been a lot of speculation over Esa Prines’ and Marko Kauppinen’s future with the Helsinki based team. Both the players cash in the most lucrative paycheques in the whole league and reports suggest that Jokerit have been disappointed by the efforts of the two players. Pirnes, a prolific goal scorer in the SM-Liiga, has only scored nine times this season while assisting 12 times. Similarly Kauppinen, who is also known for his goal and points prowess, has found the back of the net only once. Even if Jokerit would be willing to get rid of the two players, any transfers would require the players’ approval. Like with many European leagues, the SM-Liiga transfer window will close at the end of January and few teams have made moves to acquire more players to bolster their rosters for the end of the season. Kalpa has signed Ryan Lannon from the AHL. The 188cm defence man is expected to provide Kalpa with solid defensive zone play. Lannon has played in the AHL since 2005 and has worn the Lake Erie Monsters and Worcester Sharks jerseys this season. While Blues recently released Canadian Stephane Veilleux, it has brought in another Canadian to fill in his spot. Nathan Robinson will be joining the Espoo side from German DEL league Mannheim Eagles. Robinson has played 32 games in DEL league and scored six goals and six assists. Robinson has 250 AHL games on his resume accompanied with seven games at the NHL level. While others have been after new players, Pelicans staged a coup in the coaching front. The team has moved to secure the signature of the current HIFK coach, Kari Jalonen for the 2011-2012 season. Also the HIFK assistant coach Kai Rautio has chosen Lahti as his new home and will follow Jalonen to the Pelicans to fill the assistant coach role. There had been speculation that Jalonen would find his next coaching job from the Russian KHL league. Contact Janne.Virtanen@prohockeynews.com
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