Quote:
Originally Posted by TheScorpion
The SM-Liiga is Finland's top-tier league. Ilves is just a really young team.
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Ilves almost lost their spot in the league because of financial issues a few years back, which lead to them making big cuts to their player budget.
However, their youth systems is (or at least was) one of the best in the country. Välimäki, Jokipakka and Joonas Korpisalo are recent names you'd know, also Lassi Thomson was taken in the 1st round by Ottawa last year. So, one thing lead to another, and now even when they're back on their feet and middle of the pack in payroll, they're still super young overall. (I make no guarantees that the above is accurate, I just asked someone about it.)
Ilves is also a pretty good team btw, they were fourth in the standings before the league was canceled in the spring, and they're 2nd right now after ~5 rounds.
There's quite a few NHL prospects on that team. In addition to Välimäki and Thomson, they have at least Roby Järventie (Ottawa), Antti Saarela (Chicago), Matias Maccelli (Arizona), Eetu Päkkilä (NJ), Santeri Airola (Pittsburgh) and Santeri Hatakka (SJ). Oh and Lukas Dostal (Anaheim, he's a Czech.) Might be some others too. It's probably a pretty cool team to play for right now, lots of young guys with ambition and talent.
Välimäki leads his team in scoring (3-way tie) and league scoring among defensemen (4-way tie). He's also top 10 in the league in TOI/G.
Juuso is relatively unknown in Finland due to him playing (and not playing) in North America for the last five years, but by the time NHL starts again that will have changed
