The World's talent level

[X-SHARKIE]

Yes of course.


- How stupid of him to think that the SEL is more competitive than the Finnish SM-Liiga since Finnish teams nowadays sign quality players from the ECHL, NCAA, UHL.. such as for example Rod Sarich, Dylan Gyori, Dale Clarke, Pierre-Claude Drouin, David Schneider and Steve Shirreffs.

- Or that 50-60 average to really good Finnish players choose to play their hockey in Sweden instead of Finland, not to mention all the great finns that play in NLA instead of the SM-Liiga.

- Or the fact that the Finnish WC-squad consisted of 4 players from the SEL, 4 players from the NLA and only 5(!) players from the own top professional league - SM-Liiga.


Oh yes, rivercanyon had to be smoking something...

Agreed, I think the people who are putting the SM-Liiga over the SEL are only saying this because the fact that the SM-Liiga seems to be a better place for prospects to blossum and devolope. So mabey they see all these prospects coming from their and how it's a great place for these young players to play, so they think it's the more talented league?

I'm no expert of European hockey but I have seen some games from the SEL and the hockey is great. I still would consider the AHL and the RSL over it though my self.

 

[Raimo Sillanpää]

- Or the fact that the Finnish WC-squad consisted of 4 players from the SEL, 4 players from the NLA and only 5(!) players from the own top professional league - SM-Liiga.


Oh yes, rivercanyon had to be smoking something...

Isn't that the best proof then? 4 vs 5?
5 is more than 4.

 

[An Ape called Yoko]

Agreed, I think the people who are putting the SM-Liiga over the SEL are only saying this because the fact that the SM-Liiga seems to be a better place for prospects to blossum and devolope. So mabey they see all these prospects coming from their and how it's a great place for these young players to play, so they think it's the more talented league?

Bingo, right on the money. They have had better prospects coming from SM-liiga for a few years and thats probably why people instantly think its a better league, when its not.

 

[Preds666]

Isn't that the best proof then? 4 vs 5?
5 is more than 4.

So you are saying that the proof that SM-Liiga is more competitive than the SEL is because one more Finnish WC-player played in SM-Liiga? If anything that is a sign that shows just the opposite. More national team players (NHLers excluded) chose to play elsewhere in Europe, but that still makes SM-Liiga the strongest. How do you then interpret than that the corresponding numbers for the Swedish WC-team were 11 - 0 (11 in the SEL, 0 in SM-Liiga). The money is so much worse in Finland? (less, but not a huge difference), The culture is so different? (nope).

I am pretty sure you don't believe in that sort of "proof" either... but why you still posted that is still a mystery to me. But then again, judging by your earlier comment I guess you find players such as Mäntylä, Antti-Jussi Niemi, Koivisto, Kallio, Tarvainen and Norrena average..

 

[Raimo Sillanpää]

So you are saying that the proof that SM-Liiga is more competitive than the SEL is because one more Finnish WC-player played in SM-Liiga? If anything that is a sign that shows just the opposite. More national team players (NHLers excluded) chose to play elsewhere in Europe, but that still makes SM-Liiga the strongest. How do you then interpret than that the corresponding numbers for the Swedish WC-team were 11 - 0 (11 in the SEL, 0 in SM-Liiga). The money is so much worse in Finland? (less, but not a huge difference), The culture is so different? (nope).

I am pretty sure you don't believe in that sort of "proof" either... but why you still posted that is still a mystery to me. But then again, judging by your earlier comment I guess you find players such as Mäntylä, Antti-Jussi Niemi, Koivisto, Kallio, Tarvainen and Norrena average..

Kallio and Norrena certainly aren't, but when Norrena left, Lassila took his place and there's nothing wrong with him (or Karjalainen behind him) thus "losing" Norrena wasn't a big adjustment to SM-Liiga or to TPS.

All these players who've gone.. theyve been replaced by talented youth and thats why they weren't offered that pinch of more money..

As for no Swedes, why pay lots for a Swede when you can get an AHL'er who wants to get back into the NHL for less or is better?
Why pay large salary for an average sm-liiga player, when half a season away you have a young star? That's how fast the youth are progressing now.. They get in there, settle, then all of a sudden tehyve matured and stepped up (like Jarkko Immonen)

The culture is different.
Or how many Swedish hockey players speak Finnish? Besides Tommy Salo?
The pay is different, the taxes are different.

I wager that if the SM-Liiga champion and the SEL champion went to a 7 game series it'd be over in 5 and the winner would be from Oulu.

 

[f1nn]

I was talking about their quality. Not based on prospects.

I´d say that thats my top 4. im no more biased than you are.

I´m not too familiar with checz league however. Maybe its really good.

But having Finlands top league(SM-liiga) in front of Swedens league (SEL) is really wrong nowdays.

Forgive me for thinking that AHL is overrated, but it just is.

WOW, that may have been the fact in the ninetys but the SM-Liiga imo is way better quality now days that SEL and I am sure there is many people who agree

 

[f1nn]

Kallio and Norrena certainly aren't, but when Norrena left, Lassila took his place and there's nothing wrong with him (or Karjalainen behind him) thus "losing" Norrena wasn't a big adjustment to SM-Liiga or to TPS.

All these players who've gone.. theyve been replaced by talented youth and thats why they weren't offered that pinch of more money..

As for no Swedes, why pay lots for a Swede when you can get an AHL'er who wants to get back into the NHL for less or is better?
Why pay large salary for an average sm-liiga player, when half a season away you have a young star? That's how fast the youth are progressing now.. They get in there, settle, then all of a sudden tehyve matured and stepped up (like Jarkko Immonen)

The culture is different.
Or how many Swedish hockey players speak Finnish? Besides Tommy Salo?
The pay is different, the taxes are different.

I wager that if the SM-Liiga champion and the SEL champion went to a 7 game series it'd be over in 5 and the winner would be from Oulu.

Absolutely agree, and yes karpat would dominate

 

[Zine]

Quality of the league:

1. NHL
2. RSL
3. SEL
4. SM Liiga
5. AHL
6. Czech Extraleage

 

[Preds666]

As for no Swedes, why pay lots for a Swede when you can get an AHL'er who wants to get back into the NHL for less or is better?

What better AHLers?
Daniel Traczuk - now in Italy
Bruce Gardiner - 11 points in 22 games
Drew Bannister - now in Germany
Shayne Toporowski - Mr. Inconsistent who is trying to play in as many leagues as possible
Jason Dawe - 1 assist in 15 games
Martin Bergeron - 36 years old and has moved to France now

Obviously there are/were capable ones (Metropolit, Smyth.. ) but you make it seem that the league is full of AHL-stars which IMO obviously is not the case.

Why pay large salary for an average sm-liiga player, when half a season away you have a young star? That's how fast the youth are progressing now.. They get in there, settle, then all of a sudden tehyve matured and stepped up (like Jarkko Immonen)

What/how many young stars?
Toni Häppölä, Janne Laakkonen, Ville Leino, Sami Venäläinen, Janne Niskala, Jussi Jokinen, Jyri martinen and Jarko Immonen were the only players under the age of 24 that placed top 5 in points in the various SM-Liiga teams. So 8 of 65 players were under the age of 24 and from Finland. None of them with the exception of Immonen and Niskala scored amount of points that would be considered spectacular. You mean that these "young stars" that come up every 28th game according to you, and are not able to contribute in a big way offensively (not that offense is everything.. but) replace players such as Miettinen, Määttänen, Hassinen, Tarvainen etc.. who were 40-50 point players in SM-Liiga before they moved to the SEL?

The culture is different.
Or how many Swedish hockey players speak Finnish? Besides Tommy Salo?
The pay is different, the taxes are different.

Yet, Swedish players do not hesitate to move to the other European countries, where the language is indeed also different, the culture is even more different etc?
And it is not like Finland is a third world country, people do speak English not to mention the huge amount of Finns that speak perfect Swedish.

I wager that if the SM-Liiga champion and the SEL champion went to a 7 game series it'd be over in 5 and the winner would be from Oulu.

What do you base that on? Do you even know which team won the SEL-championships seeing as you did not even write out its name but you mention Kärpät (Oulu) ?

 

[f1nn]

What do you base that on? Do you even know which team won the SEL-championships seeing as you did not even write out its name but you mention Kärpät (Oulu) ?

I agree with him, I have seen Karpat play many times and altohugh i admit I do not follow Swedish hockey I have seen a few games and the onces I have seen I have not seen the same level of play that I have seen from Oulu. I do not know who won the SEL-championships as I do not really folllow Swedish hockey but I would appreciate it if you gave me the roster of the championship team and maybe we could make a poll for which team people think would win.

 

[Preds666]

I do not know who won the SEL-championships as I do not really folllow Swedish hockey but I would appreciate it if you gave me the roster of the championship team and maybe we could make a poll for which team people think would win.

yet you think you have enough meat on your bones to state that the Finnish champs would no doubt beat the SEL champs?


hehe, I don't think a poll at hfboards would make much difference since Finnish posters would vote for the Finnish team and Swedish posters for the Swedish team. Most other posters, from other countries, don't have any deep insight in any of the leagues or teams so they couldn't judge it fairly anyway.

However, here are the key-players/well-known players for HV 71 (meaningsless to post role players that fans outside Sweden never have heard about).

G
Stefan Liv
Jarmo Myllys

D
Per Gustafsson
Fredrik Olausson
Jouni Loponen
Mika Niskanen

F
Johan Davidsson
Jani Hassinen
Kalle Sahlstedt
Pasi Määttänen
Anders Huusko
Per-Åge Skröder
Andreas Jämtin

if I would do a similar thing with Kärpät it would come out this way pretty much

G
Nicklas Bäckström
Pekka Rinne

D
Ari Vallin
Mikko Lehtonen
Mikko Myllykoski
Ilka Mikkola

F
Jari Viuhkola
Jussi Jokinen
Brett Lievers
Petr Tenkrat
Sakari Palsola
Brad Smyth
Vladimir Machulda

I am not sure if Kärpät was considered to be the deepest/best roster in Finland last season, personally I think TPS had a good one with more known players than Kärpät. The same goes for HV 71, where I think Färjestad and the 2003 SEL champs Frölunda had stronger rosters. Oh, well.