Denmark: Danish League 2016-17

[Justinov]

So the Danish league this year has 10 teams with 5 from Jutland, 1 from Funen and 4 from Zealand.
The last many years the league has been totally dominated by the Jutland teams, but last year I thought Rungsted could be a dark horse, yet they didn't deliver.

This year the Zealand teams has really been of to a great start and some of the favourite Jutland teams are struggling somewhat.

I will just give an overview of who has been the star players of their respective teams [that is based on the stats since I have't had time to see games].

Aalborg.
Losing Nicolai Meyer and Olle Liss to Västervik in Allsvenskan looked serious as Christopher Frederiksen was left all alone from that super line last year; but Aalborg has gotten home-boy Julian Jakobsen back from from DEL (Hamburg Freezers).

Imports like french goalie Ronan Quenemer and Canadians Peter Quenneville (F), Andrew Blazek (D) and Bryce Reddick (D) has been really outstanding making Aalborg the leading team so far with 20 points in 7 games.

Rungsted:

Having star Danish players like Nicholas B Jensen in defense and Morten Green and Nikolaj M. Rosenthal in attack, they have lost their big talent Jonas Røndbjerg to Växjö.

They have gotten a very impressive import in former Swedish NHL player Fabian Brünnström.
Also fellow Swede Jon Palmebjörk and Canadians Brendan Connolly and Kent McDonell has started great.
After 6 games Rungsted has 13 points.

I'll continue with this when I have more time........

Click to read more...

 

[SoundAndFury]

Danish league is extremely tight this year so I have a question: is this the good teams getting worse or the average teams getting better? Because Sonderjyske at 4th and Herning at 7th looks weird. Especially since Herning for example has pretty good team on paper, everyone else does too?

Or is it simply big teams underachieving?

 

[Justinov]

Danish league is extremely tight this year so I have a question: is this the good teams getting worse or the average teams getting better? Because Sonderjyske at 4th and Herning at 7th looks weird. Especially since Herning for example has pretty good team on paper, everyone else does too?

Or is it simply big teams underachieving?

First of all sorry for not having the time lately for this thread as i had intended.
The strength of Danish teams can change quite a lot from season to season whether a team has success or not with their imports.
Compared to last year here is my assessment so far based on stats (I haven't have time to follow games):

The first surprise this year is the total collapse of Rødovre. They often start out well to then fall in the ranking among the end of the season, but this year their faltering has been catastrophic.
Star Jannik Karvinen have had an awful year, and Rødovre haven't had a great goalie performances as in the years before with Sebastian Dahm or Stefan Ridderwall.

Last year Aalborg had a heroic comeback to secure an 8th and playoff spot after being dead last for most of the season. BUT this year they have been dominating the league - getting Julian Jacobsen home from DEL has really boosted this time as has the addition of Peter Quenneville, the Højbjerg twins from Rødovre and french goalie Ronan Quemener.

Last year Odense truly was a crazy team. Very good attack, but a swiss cheese defensively.
This year they still have excellent attack (second best in scoring) , but with the defense with the fewest goal let in! Like last year Dale Mitchell just pumps away, and has managed to limit his time in the penalty box. "Only" 82 min so far (he ended up with 236 min last year in 45 matches - close to a Danish league record). With Tony Romano and Sebastian Strandberg, Odense has 3 guys in the top 5 in the points table. Galansky in goal has a much better season than last year.

Another team to surprise very positively is Gentofte. Like last year this team almost exclusively depends on imports as they were an amateur team a few years ago. So a bunch of 6 finns (four attacking, one d-man and a diminutive goalie) and the american top scorer of the Danmark2 league (amateur) last year Cam Spiro has them on a surprising 6th place (compared to the 9th place last year).
Especially the loss of last year star latvian Roberts Jekimovs to Herning would have looked catastrophic, but someone is good to spot the right imports to bring to the club!

Rungsted started very well‚ then had a long losing streak. But Danish national team veteran captain Morten Green has a good season after a couple of years in a downward trend. They have recently changed goalkeeper so it will be interesting to see if it will make a difference. When former NHL player Fabian Bruunström only is nr. 5 in the Rungsted point list it shows some depth offensively on that team!

So Frederikshavn has stayed on last years level and is currently third. Mathias Bau Hansen has another great season, so possibly a chance for another 4th line spot on the Danish WC team?
They are doing great with a quiet import "light" team.

Sønderjydske, Herning and Esbjerg has all been surprisingly weak so far.

For Sønderjydske their imports have produced, but their Danish attacking stars Kim Lykkeskov and Thomas Spelling both have a somewhat bad season. So instead of being able to outcompete the other teams with several capable lines, they are so far a little behind their usual capabilities. But it can off course still change.

Herning was also a very slow starter last year, having great defense, but trouble scoring.
That is not their problem this year - but they are still fooling around in the middle.
What is interesting is that almost look like Gentofte in being totally dominated point wise by import players. Veteran D-man Daniel Nielsen is best in point among Danish Herning players.
Usually Herning has a strong Danish core of attackers - OK maybe Lasse Lassen just need to get some rust of his break from hockey? - and that is very atypical for Herning.

Esbjerg became champions last year, but have been struggling all the way from the start of the season.
Little less quality on their imports than last year, but still surprising it has gone this bad. With Herlev dead last and Rødovre with their collapse, it looks that Esbjerg is almost secure at the 8th spot.

In the playoffs anything can happen and some teams still have room to bring in more imports to strengthen the team (especially Frederikshavn!).

 

[Justinov]

Playoffs & stats from the Danish League regular season.

1) Aalborg 91P
2) Odense 88P
3) Frederikshavn 84P
4) Esbjerg 75P
5) SønderjydskE 75P
6) Gentofte 73P
7) Herning 71P
8) Rungsted (Cupwinner) 67P
------------------------------
9) Rødovre 35P
10) Herlev 16P

Playoffs:
Aalborg selected Gentofte
Odense selected Rungsted
Frederikshavn selected Herning
Esbjerg vs. SønderjydskE

Top 10 point producers:
1) Dale Mitchell (CAN) - Odense: 27G 40A (most assists)
2) Tony Romano (USA) - Odense: 28G 26A
3) Harrison Reed (CAN) - SønderjydskE: 27G 23A
4) Peter Quenneville (CAN) - Aalborg: 30G 19A (most goals)
5) Brendan Connelly (CAN) - Rungsted: 20G 28A
6) Brock Nixon (CAN) - Esbjerg: 20G 27A
7) Jamie Johnson (CAN) - Herning: 14G 33A
8-9) Ryan Martindale (CAN) - Esbjerg: 20G 25A
8-9) Derek Damon (USA) - SønderjydskE: 16G 29A
10) Sebastian Strandberg (SWE) - Odense: 12G 32A

So very heavy Canadian domination this year and Dale Mitchell won the overall points for the second year in a row with 13P more than number two.

Lead Danish producers:
12) Julian Jakobsen - Aalborg: 8G 34A (most points and assists by Danish player)
13) Thomas Spelling - SønderjydskE: 15G 26A
14-17) Mathias Bau Hansen - Frederikshavn: 16G 24A
14-17) Morten Green - Rungsted: 16G 24A
23-25) Steffen Frank - Frederikshavn: 18G 14A (most goals by Danish player)
23-25) Rasmus Astrup - Rødovre: 7G 25A

Goalies (at least 10 games)
1) Tadeas Galansky (CZE) - Odense: 92,4%
2) Nicolaj Henriksen (DEN) - Esbjerg: 92,0%
3) Teemu Seppänen (FIN) - Gentofte: 91,9%
4-5) Thomas Lilie (DEN) - Frederikshavn: 91,8%
4-5) Ronan Quemener (FRA) - Aalborg: 91,8%
6) Simon Nielsen (DEN) - Herning: 91,4%
7) Mathias Seldrup (DEN) - Esbjerg: 91,2%
8) Tuomas Tarkki (FIN) - Rungsted: 90,8%
9) Sebastian Feuk (DEN) - Rungsted: 90,6%
10) Jeff Lerg (USA) - Rungsted: 90,3%
-----------------------
Robin Rahm (SWE) - SønderjydskE 93,4% (9 games)

 

[Justinov]

First games of the playoff:

Aalborg - Gentofte. 5-2

Odense - Rungsted: 2-1

Frederikshavn - Herning: 4-1

Esbjerg - SønderjydskE: 2-1

So all the top-4 teams of the regular season won.

 

[Justinov]

Second round of the QF meant a surprising comeback for three of the 5-8 placed in the regular season.

Gentofte - Aalborg: 3-1
Series 1-1

Herning - Frederikshavn: 3-2 OT (Lasse Lassen 2G for Herning inc. the OT winner. He had an insane 11 shots during the game out of the total 30-36 in the game!!)
Series 1-1

Rungsted - Odense: 2-4
Series 0-2

SønderjydskE - Esbjerg: 3-1
Series 1-1

 

[Justinov]

Third round of the QF playoff:

Aalborg - Gentofte: 3-1
Series 2-1

Odense - Rungsted: 3-2
Series 3-0

Frederikshavn - Herning: 3-2
Series 2-1

Esbjerg - SønderjydskE: 4-1 (Tyler Fiddler 1G 2A)
Series 2-1

 

[Justinov]

Fourth round of the QF playoffs:

Gentofte - Aalborg: 2-1 (Joonas Riekkinen 2G)
Series 2-2

Rungsted - Odense: 1-5 (Tony Romano 2G 1A)
Series 0-4

Herning - Frederikshavn: 3-2 (Markus Jensen 2G for Herning)
Series 2-2

SønderjydskE - Esbjerg: 3-1
Series 2-2

So three of the matches have all home victories so far.
Only Odense has been able to win away and they send Rungsted out surprisingly easily!

 

[Justinov]

Fifth Round of the QF playoff:

Aalborg-Gentofte: 4-3 OT (Ryan McDonough 2G for Aalborg & Teemu Virtala 2G for gentofte)
Series 3-2

Frederikshavn - Herning: 2-1 OT
Series 3-2

Esbjerg - SønderjydskE: 3-1 (Nick Olesen 2G)
Series 3-2

Remarkably still only home wins in all three matches.
While I expected the Frederikshavn/Herning & Esbjerg/SønderjydskE games to be this tight; I'm very surprised that Aalborg have such a hard time with Gentofte.

 

[Justinov]

6th round of the QF playoff:

Gentofte - Aalborg: 1-0
Series 3-3

Herning - Frederikshavn: 2-3
Series 2-4

SønderjydskE - Esbjerg: 3-4 OT [Greg Gibson 2G for SønderjydskE]
Series 2-4

So finally some away wins in these three matches. Frederikshavn and Esbjerg joins Odense in the semis.
Aalborg and Gentofte have to play a seventh and final game.

Weird to see semis without both Herning and SønderjydskE. It must be a long time ago that happened last.

 

[fredligh]

I just did some EP scouting and stumble over the fact that Anders Schultz had 105 points in 28 games, which also is gretzky-like fashion (more assists than the next one have points). That is just bizarre even though i almost could play in the Danish first division. Just pure domination or ****loads of ghost assists?

 

[Justinov]

I just did some EP scouting and stumble over the fact that Anders Schultz had 105 points in 28 games, which also is gretzky-like fashion (more assists than the next one have points). That is just bizarre even though i almost could play in the Danish first division. Just pure domination or ****loads of ghost assists?

Yeah he apparently have 29G 76A in 28 games [3.75 points pr. game: Second best is his brother Steffen Schultz with 2,61 points pr. game - 32G 41A also in 28 games].
Anders Schultz is an established metalliga player (last 4 season in Rødovre and before that in USHL & NAHL) and is clearly way to good for the amateur division 1.
So I imagine he has taken a job and so just play hockey in his spare time.

Last season you had Cam Spiro with 49G 22A in 31 games and he went straight to Gentofte.
Though Spiro had more goals, the amount of assists on Anders Schultz is clearly insane even for division 1!
The former assists record in division 1 was John Lund 1987-88 with 54A in 30 games.

 

[Justinov]

7th round of the QF playoff:

Aalborg - Gentofte: 0-3
Series 3-4

A huge surprise that Gentofte managed to win over the winners of the regular season. But good to see a team from Zealand actually reached the semis.

For the semis:
Odense chose Gentofte [Funen vs Zealand]
Frederikshavn vs Esbjerg [North Jutland vs South Jutland]
So really a nice geographical spread.

 

[Justinov]

Playoff Semifinals:

Round 1:
Odense - Gentofte: 1-2 OT

Frederikshavn - Esbjerg: 5-2 [Kristoffer Lauridsen 3G]

Round 2:
Gentofte - Odense: 2-0 [Mathias Asperup 2G]

Esbjerg - Frederikshavn: 3-0 [Ryan Martindale 1G 2A]

Round 3:
Odense - Gentofte: 1-2
Series 0-3

Frederikshavn - Esbjerg: 2-3
Series 1-2

So Gentofte continue being a huge surprise. Their matches are very low-scoring, so they have had excellent goaltending and defense, even against Odense that was the highest scoring Danish club in the regular season. Teemu Seppänen has 94,0% SVS in his 9 playoff matches!
Gentofte had it's best result in 1996-97 with a 4th place. They are one win away from being in their first ever final and if so have beaten the number 1+2 of the regular season!
The last time a non-Jutish club won was Rungsted in 2002.

The reigning champions Esbjerg had a very bad start of the season, but are on the way towards another final having turned the series from 0-1 to 2-1.

 

[Justinov]

Playoff semifinals:

Round 4:
Gentofte - Odense: 1-2
Series 3-1

Esbjerg - Frederikshavn: 2-3 [Kristoffer Lauridsen 2G for Frederikshavn]
Series 2-2

Round 5:
Odense - Gentofte: 0-2 [Cameron Spiro 2G]
Series 1-4 - Gentofte wins.

Frederikshavn - Esbjerg: 2-3 OT
Series 2-3

So Gentofte going to the final is one of the biggest surprises I can think of ever in the Danish league history.
They have beaten the series winner 4-3 in matches and the series second 4-1 in matches and have kept an extremely tight ship. Their semi-final matches were very low scoring with no game having more than 3 goals.
Congratulation to Gentofte for having secured their first medal ever.
The matches between Esbjerg and Frederikshavn are extremely tight. This fifth game going to OT seems likely to be the game that seals the win for Esbjerg in the end. They have home ice to settled it next game.

 

[Justinov]

Playoff semis.

Round 6.
Esbjerg - Frederikshavn: 3-4
Series 3-3

Esbjerg missed their "matchpoint" on home ice. The final match will be in Frederikshavn, but I wonder whether that is an advantage. Last 4 matches of this series has been away victories!

 

[SoundAndFury]

What Gentofte's doing is crazy. Someone like Spiro most likely didn't even consider himself a professional hockey player 2 years ago and now he's not far from being MVP of the playoffs and like 50k per year contract next season.

 

[Justinov]

What Gentofte's doing is crazy. Someone like Spiro most likely didn't even consider himself a professional hockey player 2 years ago and now he's not far from being MVP of the playoffs and like 50k per year contract next season.

Gentofte has made a "reverse-Jokerit"
Only two imports stayed from last years season (Goaltender Teemu Seppänen and Canadian d-man Jeff Terminesi), so they team went looking for imports.

Those who stayed:
Teemu Seppänen:
Diminutive goalie (1.66m) that has played in Mestis and Kazakhstan before coming to Denmark.
Absolutely amazing for Gentofte in the playoffs.

Jeff Terminesi:
Former NCAA played that has shuffled around in Denmark, Netherlands and Poland before reaching Gentofte.

They decided to bring in a bunch of Finns (and Cam Spiro):
So what were the credentials of this import bunch.

Cam Spiro:
Topscorer of the Danish amateur league last year and with 4 years in NCCA (though only two years really playing and not having anywhere close to impressive stats). Continues to produce both in regular season and playoffs! Settled the series against Odense with two unassisted goals!
Out of the blue he is suddenly a hockey pro close to being Danish champion!

Jesse Jyrkkiö: A
Borderline Liiga-Mestis player, that had played in Denmark before with success as well as in Allsvenskan. An on paper solid acquisition to the roster, but actually ends the regular season with having most goals from defensemen in the Danish league!

Marlo Koponen:
Borderline Liiga-Mestis player to a solid addition to the roster.

Joonas Riekkinen:
Career Liiga player. Brought in to be one of the star players of the team.
Best Gentofte producer in the regular season and 20th in the league.

Marko Virtala:
Career Liiga player. Brought in as Star player to bring Gentofte some toughness and to produce.
Great season.

Teemu Virtala:
Marko's older brother - so they are probably a package deal?
Borderline Mestis-Liiga player, that also has played in Kazakhstan.
Great season and is point pr game in the playoffs.

I didn't expect a lot before the start of the season. At best I thought the quality of the imports and their Danish roster would make them battle for the 8th spot like last; but boy have they surprised.
As in Jokerit - for some reason a mix of Danes and Finns just works in hockey?!

As for their Danish players it is mostly a bunch expected to play for the bottom clubs, but they did bring in some additions this year to improve the lines below the "import level".

Mathias Asperup was loaned from Rødovre (he is certainly a top-6 player), after Rødovre was sure they couldn't reach the playoffs.
Solid performance in the playoffs.

Mads Eller was brought home from OHL. His production is quiet low, but I reckon he muscles up the team playing 3rd or 4th C. Gentofte doesn't give up goals easily, so obviously their bottom-6 can't just be rolled over to he other teams 1st lines.

André Pison Stærmose was brought home from NAHL.
OK season.

Nikolaj Zorko was acquired from Rødovre. Bottom-6 player also likely to give more muscle to the team.
Ok season.

Of the "old" Gentofte players remaining from the amateur years, especially Luis Blak Olsen has an excellent season.

 

[Justinov]

Semi-final playoff.

Round 7:
Frederikshavn - Esbjerg: 1-2
Series 3-4

Frederikshavn had the lead 1-0 until less than 7 minutes left of the game. Esbjerg scored the winner at 59.18 and it become the 5th away victory in a row with a single goal in this series.

Final: Esbjerg - Gentofte
Bronze-medal game: Odense - Frederikshavn.

 

[Justinov]

Playoff final (best-of-seven).

1. Game:
Esbjerg - Gentofte: 3-2

2. Game:
Gentofte - Esbjerg: 4-3
Series 1-1

Playoff Bronze medal game (best-of-three).

1. Game:
Frederikshavn - Odense: 6-2

2. Game:
Odense - Frederikshavn: 0-3

Frederikshavn wins the bronze for the 4th year in a row and earns a medal for the 5th year in a row (silver back in 2011-12). Still no gold medal since 1999-2000.

Odense has through the years had 7 bronze medal games and have lost 6 of them. Also three final losses out of three without ever winning the gold.

 

[Justinov]

Playoff final:

3. Game:
Esbjerg - Gentofte: 3-2 OT

4. Game:
Gentofte - Esbjerg: 0-2

5. Game:
Esbjerg - Gentofte: 4-3 OT

Esbjerg win the series 4-1 and becomes Danish champion for the second year in a row.
Gentofte didn't have the luck needed to turn it around with two OT losses.