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Finnish Flashes In The Pan


Triumph

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40 minutes ago, Triumph said:

Ruutu's Devils career is almost certainly over at this point - he Finnishes up with 22 points in a Devils uniform.  Good enough for 3rd in franchise history among Finns, but not good enough for.. well, anything else.

I was reading the original post thinking it was a new post, and had a minor heart attack reading "signed for 2 more years", thinking there was something I didn't know about haha... Then I read the post date. Phew...

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7 minutes ago, DJ Eco said:

I was reading the original post thinking it was a new post, and had a minor heart attack reading "signed for 2 more years", thinking there was something I didn't know about haha... Then I read the post date. Phew...

Yeah, I first thought this was a new topic and when I read the part about him breaking the record for most points as a Devil from a Finn I thought "No fvcking way", even despite the fact that we've never had a superstar from Finland, or even a decent player really.  Ruutu has just sucked almost worse, it's really astonishing.  The guy isn't a great player, 700 games and only about 350 points, but he still had some decent seasons, even putting up 56 points several years ago... but for him to only point up 1 point, ONE SINGLE POINT, in 33 games this year is just, well, embarrassing.  Honestly, he should be pretty ashamed.  

I watched most of the games this year, not particularly focusing on him, but when I did see him out there, he looked almost worse than Gionta.  He looked like he was skating just to earn a paycheck.  I never saw him contribute much of anything this year.  I know he wasn't brought here to be a top scorer, but considering what he WAS brought here to do, and the fact that expectations were low, for him to underachieve even to that standard is pretty sad.  He had the potential to round out our bottom 6 and give us good depth, and instead he just became one of the deadwood players we couldn't wait to get rid of.

Fairwell Ruutu. 

 

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If we end up drafting Jesse Puljajarvi, does he count as Finnish?  He was born in Sweden (andappears to have Swedish last name), but plays for Finland in all international tournaments.  No similar doubts when it comes to Patrik Laine.  Both should be excellent NHLers. 

Edited by Daniel
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14 minutes ago, Daniel said:

If we end up drafting Jesse Puljajarvi, does he count as Finnish?  He was born in Sweden (andappears to have Swedish last name), but plays for Finland in all international tournaments.  No similar doubts when it comes to Patrik Laine.  Both should be excellent NHLers. 

I could be wrong but his last name sounds super Finnish in origin, not Swedish. It's pretty close to Magnus Paajarvi's name; who is also Swedish, but it's his Finnish grandma's last name. Guessing it's a similar deal for Puljajarvi: Swedish with Finnish origins?

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  • 1 year later...
On 3/9/2014 at 10:55 PM, Triumph said:

Next is Anssi Salmela with 13 - say what you will about Salmela, but his two goals for the Devils are both pretty memorable - the one, he got concussed by Jeff Carter in a hit that would've drawn a suspension now (and it was a short-handed goal in a big divisional game), and the second was an OT winner in 2010-11 that had the Devils the closest to the playoffs that they would get that year.  He played two years in the KHL and hasn't played anywhere this year, but I'm not sure why - hockeydb lists him on two rosters in the Swedish Hockey League, but he hasn't been in a game.

I couldn't believe that wasn't called and reviewed for suspension at the time. It was pretty egregious.

His OT goal is certainly memorable, it's one of those where you didn't have any expectation for the shot until the the goal light lit up and all of a sudden the game was over and the winning streak was alive.

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  • 2 years later...
2 minutes ago, Satans Hockey said:

I think Sami definitely qualifies as a moderately good player. 

That's true - I should have specified - we haven't had a moderately good Finnish player for very long. He played for us for what, 2-3 seasons?  The list of top producing Finnish players in our franchise's history is pretty sad...I mean, for a good player, 69 points could be what someone gets in a single season...and we haven't had one (Finnish) guy get that in 35-some years?  Granted Vatanen was a defenseman, but I still think it's pretty crazy.

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