Quote:
Originally Posted by thomast
Mika Hannula stated that Elitserien is slightly better league than SM-Liiga but game is more physical and has much higher tempo in FEL.
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Sounds about right. Those Swedes who think SM-liiga is better might just prefer the style of play.
SM-liiga is also heavily systems oriented, and as a result Swedish teams sometimes pay big for the wrong players when they come to poach Finns for Elitserien. There have been quite a few 40-50-point players in SM-liiga who can drop very quickly from 40-50 points to 15-20 points when playing for an SM-liiga team with dysfunctional systems because those players just don't have the individual skill set to stand out without the right support system.
As far as the game goes, Allsvenskan is certainly not a better league than SM-liiga, but I can easily imagine some organizations there are run more professionally than some SM-liiga teams.