Former St. Louis Blues first-round pick defenceman Jordan Schmaltz is playing his first season in Europe. He isn't the most talked about player in the league but has steadily climbed his way up as one of the league's leading defencemen.
Jatkoaika recently interviewed the American about his successful season and what made him decide to play in Europe and in Liiga.
Previously, the 28-year-old Wisconsin native played 42 NHL games for the Blues until getting traded to Toronto Maple Leafs for the 2019−20 season. He only played on the Marlies for 37 games before getting traded again to the New York Islanders. His stint with the Islanders was short playing just six games in the AHL before the covid pandemic caused cancellation of all leagues.
− I was kind of in the situation where the St. Louis Blues didn't need me. They already had players like Alex Pietrangelo, Colton Parayko and Robert Bortuzzo, so for them, I'd have been more of a third pairing defenceman. If I had been drafted to another team that would have needed a player like me, then maybe things would be different.
Schmaltz said he came to Europe to get a change of pace after only having an AHL contract last season. He had heard good things about the HIFK coaching staff led by Ville Peltonen and Cory Murphy and saw the team as a good fit for his goals of reinventing and developing himself.
His old friend, forward Alex Broadhurst, also plays on the team and was part of the reason for him signing with HIFK.
When Jatkoaika first interviewed Schmaltz in September, he was still adjusting to the bigger ice and the distance between forwards and defense. But since then, he seems to have gotten a hang of the bigger ice, and Liiga fans certainly noticed it in HIFK's 7-3 win against SaiPa in January, where he put up one goal and four assists.
− I've probably had three-point nights before, but not five. It was the kind of night where everything was coming together for us.
In total this season, Schmaltz has nine goals and 22 assists in 46 games, which currently puts him in fifth place for top scoring defencemen. Nine goals is also his personal record at the elite level.
− I came to Europe with more emphasis to shoot, with more purpose.
Despite finding his strengths on the Liiga ice, HIFK as a team has't been as strong as they could be with having more losses than wins. They have been widely affected with covid cases and games being postponed, which has affected their flow.
But Schmaltz believes once they get the consistency back with games and practising, the team will be coming in strong for the playoffs run.
OJ Watch: The posse full of surprises
When former NHLer Olli Jokinen was announced as the new head coach for Jukurit, people had a lot of doubts. Even Jatkoaika's preseason evaluation had the team in 13th place at the end of the regular season, but now we have to admit being very wrong about OJ and his posse.
Jokinen and his team had a rough start to the season, residing in the bottom five for the first weeks of the season until starting their insane rise at the end of October. Now they reside in third place.
The main keys in Jukurit's rise to the top have been Jokinen developing his game plan to fit Liiga, as he follows more of an NHL style play, and keeping up good morale within the team.
The latter has been evident when the games may not be going their way, but somehow they seem to end up catching a point or three out of them in the end.
The team's goal at the beginning of the season was to make it into the top six, and therefore making it to the playoffs for the first time in their Liiga history. But ever since finding themselves at the top of the league, they decided to reach for something greater: a place in the top four and gaining home advantage.
Jokinen has managed to turn a bunch of misfits into a competitive team. For example, the New York Islanders prospect Aatu Räty wasn't getting ice time in Kärpät but has flourished as one of the league's top centres under Jokinen's guidance.
Carolina Hurricanes prospect Patrik Puistola was in a similar situation in JYP but has now shown his assets on the power play and scored 13 goals this season. Puistola also showed his nifty moves by pulling a lacrosse goal against Tappara, the team where his father Pasi Puistola works as the assistant coach.
Besides Puistola and Räty, the team has even more young rising stars on their roster, one of whom is 23-year-old centre Otto Mäkinen, who has doubled his points from last season. Goaltender Oskari Salminen, 22, has started 50 games and recorded six shutouts with a 0.914 save percentage.
But it's the team captain and Liiga's shortest player, Petrus Palmu, 24, who is the team's biggest star. The 168 cm (5'6") tall former Canucks-draftee compensates for his height with his skating and strength, which makes him quite an annoying guy to play against. Palmu has tallied 50 points in 52 games.
Three-day mayhem before the trade deadline
With just a few weeks left of the regular season, the change of the month from February to March was wild with late coaching changes and the Liiga transfer deadline.
First, Kärpät announced they had released head coach Lauri Mikkola from his duties and replaced him with Lauri Marjamäki, who still had been KHL team Jokerit's head coach the same morning. Marjamäki and Kärpät have history together as the team has won two championships with him.
The change came due to the necessity to provide Kärpät success in the playoffs. At the time of the change, the team had gathered 79 points in 50 games, putting them in 7th place. But with the past success of Kärpät, they keep wanting more. The game itself also hadn't been the most consistent under Mikkola's lead, and the fans had been demanding a change for months.
Marjamäki wasn't the only person to be freed from his duties with Jokerit. The team decided to drop out of the KHL playoffs due to Russia's attack against Ukraine, which then gave a chance for players to continue their season in Liiga.
In total, 20 new players joined eight different teams, most of whom were former Jokerit players. Freshly crowned Olympic gold medalists Marko Anttila, Hannes Björninen and Iiro Pakarinen were among the new additions, thus, making the final few weeks of the regular season pretty interesting.