Esa Lindell???? Not Heiskanen or Klingberg???

Klingberg is injured, but after that yeah it doesn’t make sense.

And even then, I think it would be a better plan to give the PP to Harley (do you remember our Harley jokes on Discord during the 2021 WJC?) than to Lindell or Suter for that matter

Yeah I remember. Harley isn’t in the lineup so he couldn’t QB our PP.

Even that is dumb IMO. He's got to be better than Sekera

Kappo Kakko is injured, you know who could replace him on the 2nd line Vitali Kravtsov , Cf has NYR 2nd line projected to be Panarin-Chytil-Goodrow, with Strome and Kakko out, ouch

He’s got to get better consistency to be in our lineup, except that he can be better than Hanley, Sekera and Hakanpaa.

and btw, I can't believe you guys really sent Oettinger down

As a Finn I can say that you're right and wrong there.

For young players - and I'm talking about 16 or under, the development program is pretty fine. Considering that Finland is a country of 5,5 million people, the fact that we have around 50 active NHL players and the amount of young Finnish prospects getting touted and drafted by NHL teams is constantly increasing I think we're doing pretty well in terms of developing young players.

The Finnish elite league, or Liiga as it's formally known, is the bigger problem here. Top prospects at the age of 17-20 can be playing in a top role in here provided they're good enough, but the level of the league itself is getting worse each year. The league currently has too many teams with only few of them having realistic chance of competing for anything meaningful, which leads to massive difference in level between teams. Five or six of the fifteen clubs involved try to get better, and the rest of the teams start selling their players somewhere else because it simply makes more sense from the financial standpoint.

For the prospect this poses a bit of a problem. You must be either a top notch asset to get the needed ice time in the better teams. If you're not quite at that level, then you must either settle for a smaller role in that better team and thusly lose some interest from the scouts, or find a weaker team where you might get the role you desire, with the cost of not playing in a team that is seriously competing for anything. You could say it's a double edged sword.

Finland's Liiga at it's current status is not a good place for a prospect unless you're an elite prospect like Anton Lundell for instance. Or Joakim Kemell this year for example.

Almost all teams in the league have a decent development program, but the development part of it "stops" to an extent once you go professional. The fact that most of the prospects come from team like Kärpät is mostly geographical - most of the young prospects at their early teens that come from northern part of the nation end up in Kärpät because it's the most northern city having a development program in the country for example.

frederik andersen saving 36 of 37 shots in a game in october feels illegal

— dom at the athletic (@domluszczyszyn) October 17, 2021

Happy for him

Sometimes I have to wonder why I am a Dallas fan, given that out of 50-60 games I watch per season while f*cking up my sleeping schedule entirely (it's 3 AM in here), 35 out ot them are usually complete horsesh*t. Stars' playstyle is so f*cking frustrating to watch. Like, every time I see them doing that dump and chase thing I just want to smash my head to a wall because 98 out of 100 of those tries end up in favor of the opposition.

I probably should try jumping to the Seattle bandwagon as it's something new and interesting.

My heart is with Dallas, but my brain wants to leave.

Yeah seems out of the majority of Liiga teams Karpat is good with prospects and often prospects do well for them. For instance Topi Niemela is playing on the top pair and doing pretty well so far plus (13gp 2 goals 10 assists) plus watching the 2 Raty brothers is intriguing. Pelicans also seem to like giving prospects good opportunities which is why I have been watching both teams. Other Liiga teams should follow this example as we could see more solid players come in

Kärpät provide the most prospects in here, and usually collect best ones for their use. Some prospects who want a new challenge might leave for new challenge if they feel like they won't reach the role they're after in Kärpät. Mikael Granlund is the most notable example of that.

To your latter point, I do agree that for Finnish juniors in general it'd be better if the top league here could be considered as a developmental one, but in reality it's still in its heart a competitive one, with teams making decisions that are in their best interest, not necessarily the best interest of the younger players, because the latter one would lead them losing all their best players on a yearly basis with the players leaving and looking for another challenge, because as a small nation Finland is not able to compete against the KHL, Swiss or Swefish league financially. Salaries paid here are relatively low. Liiga must rely on its level and competitiveness to lure in better players. And they're currently failing on that miserably.

I honestly couldn’t have said it better, what’s worse is that I’m somewhat happy that Stars games aren’t on TV where I’m from. I’d honestly lose even more brain cells than I lost already..

Good exercise while watching Dallas games - do something that inflicts pain in your body. That alleviates the pain in your soul caused by watching their games. It increases your endurance lol.

But why wouldn't you want to watch Comeau get more ice time than Gurianov?

Luckily Comeau's also injured

I wrote a major paper on Finland and Hockey for College - that country has a formula for success in the NHL for their youth development/ management and trajectory towards success. Really a fascinating paper/ research; I enjoyed studying Finland a ton. Very forward thinking.

Astonishing that a country of just under 6mil can compete with juggernauts.

That’s why I picked up Boxing as my secondary sport. It lets out all of the pain caused by all these bozos.

Youth development here rivals the best of the best on the planet. It's a shame that competitively Finnish Liiga is so bad nowadays. One could say that two decisions lead to things going this way
1) the decision of closing the league - no relegation pressure for badly performing teams, and no promotion for new teams playing in the lower divisions
2) the decision of Jokerit Helsinki leaving the league and joining KHL - from the finance and business point of view losing the biggest team in Finnish hockey was catastrophic for the league as a whole.

Finland's ideology and decisions to teach/ grow/ and develop youth outside/ inside sport and mainly hockey is second to none imo.

The way they approach everything is fantastic (like education and then focus on being a professional not just a pro athlete). Their scouting/ development system is awesome.

It is truly a shame whats going on with the Liiga. I wish they had a more stable league.

Apparently Danault was promised power-play time in LA. He hasn't had it yet 👀.

Would have got it in Vegas over Stephenson honestly surprised they didnt pursue him

Indeed. Should have just stayed home my Phil