FINLAND – The Finnish SM-Liiga got off to a flying start with a few surprising results. Apart from the score lines and a few unpredicted results, the talk centred around Espoo Blues defender Jere Karalahti who was sent off in his first outing for his new team. Karalahti was ejected from a hit that the referees deemed was aimed at the head, though video replays show that the hit was clean and as a result Karalahti received no further bans for the hit.
Elsewhere the surprising result has been for Porin Assat, who many projected to sit somewhere near the bottom of the table and for Oulun Karpat, who in pre-season projection was at the opposite end of the table compared to Assat.
Assat has won both of its games now and has collected the maximum number of points and sits pretty at the top of the standings so far, while Karpat having lost its first two games (one of which was to Assat) is now sitting third from the bottom. Karpat have been without one of its top import players, Pavel Rosa, who will join the team early next month. Karpat will also receive further import assistance once former Colorado Avalanche, Tom Preising joins the team. Preising will first play a month in the Russian KHL before the move to Northern-Finland.
Another hot topic was Tappara, who retired the number 8 jersey of its icon, Janne Ojanen. Last season Ojanen regained the number one spot as the all time leading point scorer in the SM-Liiga from Arto Javanainen who had held the record since retiring in 1995. In 876 career games, Ojanen scored 799 points (283 goals and 516 assists). Where Javanainen spent majority of his career in Finland (spent a season in the Pittsburgh Penguins organisation and final season in the Danish league), Ojanen had stints in the NHL, AHL, Swedish Elite Serien and the Swiss league. Sadly for Ojanen though, the visiting team, Kalpa ruined his special night by winning the game. Before the game Kalpa’s Head coach, Pekka Virta apologized to Ojanen as they intended to win the game.
Speaking of Tappara, the team whose coaching woes have been well documented in Pro Hockey News, saw its season to a mediocre start. Many were predicting that the team would struggle to win any games, but out of the opening round Tappara has won one game and lost one, so not a disastrous start. At least when compared to the other Tampere based team Ilves. Ilves’ season was also going to be difficult and the team has struggled out of the gate losing both its games heavily.
If Karpat is a bit of a surprise in the cellar of the table so early on, the other surprise is Jokerit, whose star studded roster fell to arch rivals HIFK in the opening round. Minnesota Wild’s first round draft pick, Mikael Granlund was on fine form in the game with impressive 2+1 stats. Guessing that Granlund won’t be seeing too much AHL action next year if his season is a success in SM-Liiga. The match between Jokerit and HIFK was one of the most entertaining ones of the opening round. Jokerit also struggled in its second game against Pelicans who took the game all the way to penalty shots, where Jokerit eventually came out as the winners.
Last years’ champions TPS started its season by facing its opponent from the finals. HPK, a team that has gone a major overhaul, was keen to get a rematch of the final but only managed a draw the game. TPS’s second match didn’t provide much better results as the team still suffering from the championship hangover and the loss of key players and head coach lost to Assat.
Overall the league table is as follows after two games played:
1. Assat
2. HIFK
3. KalPa
4. HPK
5. JYP
6. Tappara
7. Lukko
8. Saipa
9. Jokerit
10. TPS
11. Pelicans*
12. Karpat
13. Blues*
14. Ilves
Pelicans and Blues have only played one game so far.
Contact Janne.Virtanen@prohockeynews.com
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