The Greatest of Finland (Portal Era)

[SirRupertBarnes 217]

Welcome back to another entry of the greatest players from the portal era. Today we’re going to be looking at Finland. In case this is your first time reading, the format I use is five skaters and one goalie. If there’s a player who didn’t make the cut and I felt they were still worth mentioning there will be an honourable mention category. There will be a special exception in today’s article so be sure to check it out.

 

Now with that out of the way let’s get right into the list!

 

F - Rauno Palo 1443 TPE @jRuutu

First up on this list we’ll start off strong with Rauno Palo. In 577 career games played, he recorded 233 goals and 336 assists for 569 points. The first few seasons of his career with Quebec were alright recording 131 points in 216 games. After the team moved to Vancouver his career started to take off, recording 31 goals and 35 assists for 66 points the very same season. He followed that up with 83 points the following season before having a career year in S67 putting up 46 goals and 64 assists for 110 points that year. He recorded 16 points in 18 games on the road to his first and only Continental Cup win. When the dust settled and the playoffs had ended he was awarded four individual trophies which were; the Mike Szatkowski Trophy for league leader in points, Scotty Campbell Trophy for league MVP, Brett Slobodzian Trophy for being voted the most outstanding player voted for by the players, and to top it all off he won the Alexander Beketov Trophy for leading the league in assists that season. In S68 he was traded to Riga where he spent the last two seasons of his career and recorded 179 points in those 2 seasons along with 31 playoff points in 28 games. Pretty solid career for the 4th overall pick. Although he wasn’t inducted into the Hall of Fame he’s by far one of the best to come out of Finland.

 

F - Joel Ylonen 1256 TPE @Esso2264

Up next we have a very interesting story with finnish player Joel Ylonen. In his 8 season career between S64-S71 he was able to record 135 goals and 311 assists for 446 points. He was a pretty fantastic player, especially in the playoffs putting up 15 goals and 35 assists for 50 points in 54 playoff games. He even won back-to-back cups with Seattle in S68 & S69. He wasn’t anything too flashy, never winning any individual trophies or making too many highlight reels. He did however put in the work and post some solid numbers night in and night out. In his 8 year career he was traded on six separate occasions. Some of which were pretty serious blockbuster trades. I could get into that but that’s not what this list is about and it probably deserves its own trade tree anyway. The largest one in terms of amount of assets was when he was traded to Seattle in exchange for six different assets, including a first rounder. He won’t be a Hall-of-Famer but he did have a solid career and represented Finland well during his time in the VHL.

 

D - Fabio Jokinen 1224 TPE @jRuutu

Now we move onto the offensive dynamo on the back-end, Fabio Jokinen. In his 8 season career (6 of those with Quebec) from S52-S59 he was able to record 151 goals and 489 assists for 640 points in just 576 games played. The man knew how to set up his teammates and he did it well. Not only was he spectacular in his own zone, he also was a fantastic defender blocking over 1100 shots in his career. He was a two-time Sterling Labatte Trophy winner for being the league’s top defenseman, along with a Jake Wylde Trophy for league’s top defensive defenseman. He was able to capture his first and only Continental Cup in S56 with Quebec and had a career high 24 goals, 82 assists finishing with another career high 106 points that season. In S60, the very next season after he hung up the skates, he was inducted into the VHL Hall-of-Fame and rightfully so. He was a special talent that paved the way for many more defenders of his kind. There’s definitely been many kids in Finland as well as around the world who have looked up to his style of play over the years. Even the likes of Joseph McWolf may have looked up to him as their styles of play were quite similar.

 

F - Aleksi Koponen 1190 TPE @Will

Up next on our list we have Hall-of-Famer Aleksi Koponen. Aleksi played part of his career before the portal era so I had to do a little bit of research to get all of his stats but we did manage to find them in the end. In his 8 season career spanning from S45-S52 he recorded 337 goals and 485 assists for a whopping 822 points in 576 games played. He won back-to-back cups as a rookie and a sophomore in S45 & 46 along with a Mike Szatkowski Trophy in S51. He wasn’t afraid to throw the body around a little bit as well, recording a little over a 1,000 career hits. Koponen was an absolute offensive dynamo and is ranked 18th in all time points. He’s definitely the best offensive player from Finland in the modern era.

 

F - Mikko Aaltonen 1140 TPE @GRZ

Now we move onto Finnish forward Mikko Aaltonen. Aaltonen just retired this past season and in his 576 career games played, he put up 232 goals, 277 assists for 509 points. Although he never won any individual awards nor a Continental Cup, he was a consistent 30 goal scorer along with putting up more than 60 points per season. He won’t be inducted into the Hall-of-Fame but in terms of Finnish players, he’s one of the best to come from there.

 

G - Tuomas Tukio 1400 TPE @Higgins

So normally I would just be using players from the portal era. However, there were no goalies in the modern era that I felt were worth mentioning so I decided to dig into the archives for the greatest Finnish goalie of all time. Upon some research through the Hall-of-Fame as well as all time goalie stats I came across none other than Tuomas Tukio. Tukio played from S31-S38 and in his career he posted a 359-114-37 record with 62 shutouts and a career .925% with a 1.99GAA. He’s 11th in games played, second in all time wins, tied for 8th in career SV%, second in GAA, and 16th in shutouts. Tukio had well over 13,000 saves in his career along with a multitude of trophies. He is a two-time Scotty Campbell Trophy winner for league MVP, two-time Brett Slobodzian Trophy winner for most outstanding player as voted by the players, two-time Aidan Shaw Trophy winner for league’s top goaltender, and to top it off he helped Helsinki win a Continental Cup in S34. To nobody’s surprise he was a first ballot Hall-of-Famer in S39 where he’s had his name cemented as one of the league’s best goaltenders in history. Normally I would stick to just portal era players but I felt he was just too good and their wasn’t anyone else even close to this caliber that was worth mentioning as one of the greatest players to come from Finland.

 

Honourable Mention:

F - Mikko Lahtinen 970 TPE @Beketov

One player I felt was worth mentioning who didn’t make the cut was Mikko Lahtinen. He doesn’t quite have the stats or skill level just yet to be considered one of the best. However, he does have a lot of potential to be on this list in the future and should be at least mentioned. In just four seasons in the VHL he’s been able to record 81 goals, 127 assists for 208 points in 288 games played. Lahtinen also has almost 800 hits in his career and even won the Dustin Funk Trophy for most improved player in S72. He’s yet to win a Continental Cup but he has played in 57 playoff games and recorded 23 goals, 14 assists for 37 points. There’s a lot of potential left yet so we’ll have to see how his career turns out but for now I felt he was at least worth mentioning. Although this doesn’t directly affect anything, he is a fan favourite in terms of fantasy picks putting up so many hits as a forward is bound to get the fans to like you as well. I’m sure we’ll hear more of this name as time goes on but for now he’s in the honourable mention category.

 

Unfortunately that’s all the time we have for today but be sure to let me know what you thought down below. Thanks for taking the time to give this a read, I do appreciate the support. Do you think the exception was valid or do you feel I should’ve stuck to the format? I’d love to hear your feedback and be sure to let me know what country you feel I should do next.

 

1534 words

[jRuutu 2,298]

Motherland representing! Nice work with the article, I enjoyed it!

 

 

[Laine 1,361]

Another Finn is gonna be on that last in a few season

[JigglyGumballs 1,056]

Review:

 

First of all, I wanna say that I love these type of articles you make. It's really well done and it goes a lot in depth in terms of the individual players. The format is clean and I liked how you put the user mentions right next to the names rather than slapping them on the bottom. Overall it's a great article and I would love to see a similar type of article for people from miscellaneous countries outside of Canada, US, Finland, Sweden etc. 10/10

[Plate 285]

Review
COUSIN NICKO, WANT TO GO BOWLING? I'm reviewing this for TPE so please don't hate me later today when we play the Division. I liked the change from 3F and 2D to 5 skaters. I think it gives a more accurate representation of the players that come from each country. It isn't uncommon to play a winger as a D man for example. There is a severe lack of Finnish flags on this post for being a team about players from Finland, so you might want to put more of those in there. Also, in regards to the headers, I would probaby cut the underline and just make the text to size 20, like so: 

F - Rauno Palo, 1443 TPE 

 

9/10 Needs more Finnish flags (Or a GIF even)

[SirRupertBarnes 217]

On 9/13/2020 at 4:23 PM, JigglyGumballs said:

I would love to see a similar type of article for people from miscellaneous countries

I was actually planning on doing that to cover players that will get missed. I just wanted to focus on the more “core” countries first

[SirRupertBarnes 217]

Claiming part 2/3 week ending Sep 20

[SirRupertBarnes 217]

Claiming part 3/3 week ending Sept 27 (holy cow September is almost over)

[a_Ferk 760]

I like these kind of articles that you do, would love to see one for the more obscure nations. The writing and grammar looks pretty good. I like how you subjectively based the players base on stats instead of just by TPE. The only thing I really noticed is that some of the spacing between paragraphs is kind of wonky. See: between Jokinen and Ylonen. Other than that I think it is a nice article. 9.5/10