From: etxonss@ufsa.ericsson.se (Staffan Axelsson)
Subject: Re: Are EUROPEAN teams as good as NHL teams? (WAS: A Proposal...)
Organization: Ericsson Telecom, Stockholm, Sweden
Date: Mon, 9 Nov 1992 12:21:16 GMT

MLINDROOS@finabo.abo.fi (Marcus Lindroos INF) writes:
>In <PKORTELA.92Nov3143721@lk-hp-13.hut.fi> pkortela@snakemail.hut.fi writes:
>
>>I disagree. These all-star teams would certainly win more than a half of their
>> games in the NHL. Even top teams of european ice hockey leagues (eg Dif, 
>> Brynas, TPS, Jokerit, Dusseldorf EG or SC Bern) would play far better than
>> worst teams of the NHL.
>
>Most unlikely! NHL teams (NY Rangers, Washington, Calgary) usually have beaten
>their Swedish and Finnish opponents on the rare occasions when they bother to
>come over here for an exhibition game or two. The Soviets did have some teams
>that were every bit as good as the top NHL teams, but they are history now.
>Heck, even the best Swedish and Finnish players not playing in North America
>are usually NHL cast-offs or not good enough to get drafted.

 When comparing NHL teams to European teams it is important to consider the
 different conditions such as rink size, rules used, refs used etc.

 To show this, let me give you two examples, Eric Lindros and Michael Nylander.
 Michael Nylander, a big star in Sweden last season and at the World Junior
 Championships. He won the point scoring at the WJHC and was one of AIK's key
 players in Elitserien. Now he's in NHL but is hardly playing any games at all
 and this is in Hartford, one of the worst teams in NHL.

 Eric Lindros, big star in NHL making mega-bucks. He wasn't as impressing in
 any international tournament played on large ice surface, really. Finished
 behind 4 Swedes (Nylander, Peter Forsberg, Mikael Renberg, Markus Naslund)
 in point scoring at the WJHC. He also played on the Canadian team that got beat
 by a Swedish B-team (2nd rate team) by 7-1.

 Does this give any indication of which league is the best in the world?
 No, not really. The majority of the world's best players play in NHL but
 does this mean that the world's best hockey is played in NHL? That's not
 for certain either.

 Leksand's Canadian coach, Wayne Fleming, has on several occasions said
 that ELITSERIEN IS THE BEST LEAGUE IN THE WORLD. I can see a couple of
 reasons for his statement.
 1) He is polite to the people of Sweden (I believe this to be true).
 2) He prefers Int'l (pass/skate) hockey to NHL (dump-n-chase) hockey.

 This only goes to show that different players perform differently in
 different conditions and whichever hockey's the best is in the observers
 eye.

>---
>The Ottawa Senators would win the Finnish championship if they were playing in
>our league. 
> 
 In SM-Liiga they would probably battle for not being relegated to division 1.
 In NHL only the top 2-3 Finnish teams would beat them.

 That's just my opinion...

 Oh, and the piece about the Soviets: If they would have managed to hold their
 country together and been able to keep their best players in USSR, they
 would be unbeatable on large ice surface and they would be even with Canada
 on small rinks. They would beat the shit out of Sweden in the WC's 10-1
 like they used to do 10 years ago...

>> Petteri Kortelainen
>
>MARCU$

Staffan
--
 ((\\  //| Staffan Axelsson                
  \\  //|| etxonss@ufsa.ericsson.se             
\\_))//-|| contact for Swedish hockey         
Newsgroups: rec.sport.hockey