No, I believe it is the opposite, the league is stronger now than two years ago. Two years ago the financial crisis hit Danish hockey hard. Several clubs were on the edge of bankruptcy, and a lot of foreign players were fired. Most teams used junior players, and many 16-17 year old players got their débuts at that time. Nicklas Jensen played on the first line in Herning most of the year, because the team was very weak. This year the competition in the league is much harder, with no easy games.
As I only watch one team in the league I can't say that my impression is valid allround, but I disagree..
1) Foreign players er still getting fired(Whelan, Seibel, Lipovski, the guys from CPH etc. etc.). The quality of the foreigners are also getting worse in my eyes(but that's a opinion that you can feel free to disagree).
2) The teams still play with a lot of juniors. Rodovre, Esbjerg, Herlev, Frederikshavn and Herning all have juniors, not only in the line-up as the trend was two-three years ago, but as key players.
3) The juniors that came forward back then was the best of juniors. Now we are seeing players that weren't allways set out to be senior-players playing 10-15 min a night. Alot of these players come with a more and more incomplete skillset and finish their development in the best league, where as they used to be a done project(Of cause not completly done... there's things you can teach in the juniors and 1. Div... but you catch my drift?).
4) Look at the games. It's obvious that a lot of the Danish profiles has left to(Ronny Larsen, Lasse Degn, Alexander Sundberg, Daniel Nielsen, Kiril Starkov, Jesper Jensen x 2, etc. etc.). The tactical level of the game has dropped. There's rookie mistakes all over the place. Completly disagree with the no easy games. Look at when a team play with structure like SE can. Alot of the other teams really don't stand a chance(Based mostly on their visits in Rodovre).
Not trying to take away anything from Oliver Bjorkstrand who's gonna compete heavily with Mads Eller for the spot as first dane drafted next year in my mind... if only he'd leave Denmark for Sweden or Canada to get some attention.
