NHL - Finnish goalies galore

Five Finnish goaltenders are #1 on team rosters; a dozen have NHL contracts

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By Martin Palm in Vancouver
     
      North America’s National Hockey League made a false start in Europe at the weekend, when the Los Angeles Kings and the Anaheim Ducks - last season’s Stanley Cup winners - met twice in London.
      More than 30,000 European hockey fans turned out to watch the games, which ended honours even as the Kings first beat the Ducks 4-1 on Saturday and then Anaheim rebounded to take a 4-1 victory of their own on Sunday.
      So Europe has had a taste of the action, and across the Atlantic the regular NHL season gets underway tomorrow, Wednesday.
     
There were no Finns on the ice in the two matches at the O2 Arena in London.
      In a sense this was a little surprising, since there are now more than 50 Finnish ice hockey players with an NHL contract in their pocket.
      In as many as 26 of the NHL’s 30 teams there is at least one Finnish name on the roster. Of these teams, at least 18 are likely to play through the entire upcoming season with a Finn among their number.
      A good many Finnish players will nevertheless end up being disappointed, since they will spend the entire season in a farm team in the AHL. At least 21 of the more than fifty Finns will in fact be starting out in the lower echelons, and will be trying to make it up to the big league from there.
     
If things go on the way they seem to be going, there will probably be around 30-32 Finnish players on the NHL ice this season.
      Last year’s total was 30, and in the years before that it was 31, 31, and 32. The current "Finnish record" dates from ther 2001-2002 season, when no fewer than thirty-six Finns played in the world’s toughest hockey league.
      It is nevertheless perhaps only fair to say that four of them actually made just one NHL appearance during the season.
     
This year the strongest Finnish showing by a long chalk is among the goaltenders.
      Niklas Bäckström (Minnesota Wild), Miikka Kiprusoff (Calgary Flames), Kari Lehtonen (Atlanta Thrashers), Fredrik Norrena (Columbus Blue Jackets), and Vesa Toskala (Toronto Maple Leafs) will all be heading into the new season as their team’s first-choice goaltender.
      Antero Niittymäki (Philadelphia Flyers) and Hannu Toivonen (St. Louis Blues) are strong backup men.
     
Aside from these seven, there are five more Finnish goaltenders with an NHL contract. If we also note that 19-year-old Riku Helenius, who played last season for Ilves of Tampere, has gone off to play junior hockey with the Seattle Thunderbirds in the Western Hockey League, and that Mika Noronen (who earlier played for Buffalo Sabres) chose in 2006 to play in Russia, it basically means the fourteen teams in the Finnish SM-Liiga have lost fourteen top-drawer goalies between them.
      Some might say that 12 NHL goalies isn’t so much to get excited about, but apparently it is, as the Swedes are distinctly bitter over the number of Finns suiting up between the posts.
      If every one of the Finnish goaltenders in the NHL plays at least one game this season, it will mean that Finnish goalies account for around 15% of all the goaltenders in the league.
     
We would only arrive at that sort of percentage among the defensemen and the forwards if there were more than 120 Finnish players skating in the NHL during the season.
      For some inexplicable reason, goalies do seem to be a strong Finnish export item: much the same imbalance has also been in evidence in football’s English Premiership.
      Three of the eighteen Finnish players who have turned out for sides in the top English soccer league have played between the posts: Peter Enckelman, Antti Niemi, and Jussi Jääskeläinen.
     
But back to hockey. Six Finns have won the Stanley Cup during the 90-year history of the NHL.
      The most recent holder of a prized Stanley Cup ring is Teemu Selänne of Anaheim Ducks. Selänne, 37, is currently pondering whether to continue his career or hang up his skates. He did not suit up for Anaheim during their trip to London.
      The chances of seeing the Stanley Cup paraded in Finland again next summer are relatively slim.
      On only two occasions have Finnish names been inscribed on the trophy in successive years: in 1984 & 1985 Jari Kurri did it, and in 1987 and 1988 Kurri and Esa Tikkanen pulled off the feat. In fact in 1987 there were three Finnish names engraved there, as Reijo Ruotsalainen was also a memberof the all-conquering Edmonton Oilers team.
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 2.10.2007


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Selänne and Anaheim win Stanley Cup (7.6.2007)

Links:
  NHL Official Site
  NHLFinns.com

MARTIN PALM / Helsingin Sanomat