kp61c
Registered User
maybe, it's trending in the right direction for sure and that's nice to see. it's blows european leagues out of the water in terms of the potential
Is KHL still the best league in Europe?
- Thread starter Eye of Ra
- Start date
Hard to see what potential there still is, the KHL of yesteryear with teams in various European capitals will never come back and for its current sorry state of existence 23 teams are simply way too many. Meanwhile in Sweden or Switzerland we have 14. Frankly the KHL should cut down to the same immediately if it wishes to have potential as a competitive professional league.
mattihp
Registered User
Extra liga ahead of the SHL, NL and AHL? DEL ahead of liiga and NL?
Extraliga have the worst imports of these, but good native players. DEL has good imports but the level of the native players is not that good, albeit rising.
They should consider what Germany did. KHL 1 (less teams) and KHL 2 (rebrand the VHL) and have promotion/relegation between the two
They win World Championship with some Extra liga players says that this league is enough.
mattihp
Registered User
No, the depth is atrocious. The best czech players there are really good, but it gets thin quickly. The fact that Swedish HA players aren't completely embarrassed there says it all.
The KHL have perfect league size.
Increase Chinese teams from 1 to 2-3 teams sounds good.
Chinese can play hockey on ice.
Chinese can fight.
In 2019, Rudi Ying became the first Chinese-native to score a goal in the KHL. An impending domestic league has been proposed by the Chinese Ice Hockey Association. The league is assumed to consist of eight clubs.
I know four hockey clubs in China:
Jilin City Investment
Beijing Shougang
Zhongshang Hokay
Kunlun Red Star
I know four hockey clubs in China:
Jilin City Investment
Beijing Shougang
Zhongshang Hokay
Kunlun Red Star
Last edited:
The population of Russia is way bigger than Sweden or Switzerland. They should have more teams.
That said I think the sweet spot is 18 teams. 17 x 4 for 68 game season. The smaller leagues in Europe should combine to make 3 main leagues. Eg. Sweden, Finland, Norway, Denmark and the Baltics should combine to make one league (three 18 team leagues of relegation).
The system in Sweden works really well as it is, also lower tiers are generally competitive and there are many, annual promotion and relegation between each. In Russia despite being a bigger country there's nothing serious below the KHL and the VHL. Already the third tier is basically recreational hockey and would get torn apart by any Hockeyettan team (and there are 40).
In Finland 12+12 teams and promotion/relegation would be better, Liiga has some unnecessary ballast and Mestis needs major teams to stay interesting. But Jokerit has been a bigger hit even there than previously in the KHL so clearly domestic hockey with its natural rivalries is not easily replaceable.
Could easily go four or five 14-18 team leagues with relegation that includes all of Northern Europe. Another way to look at it would be if teams from Finland, Norway, Denmark, and the Baltics joined the SHL system.
There are some, the Finnish team IFK Mariehamn plays in the Swedish leagues (Div. 3) and Zemgale from Latvia played in Mestis recently, but in most cases the travel is not worth it and both commercial value as well as fan interest tend to be low. Similar to Belarusian teams joining the Russian leagues, in most cases it makes no sense for them to travel to Siberia to play Norilsk or whomever when they don't have to.
A joint league between Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania makes more sense due to lesser travel and few pro opportunities in each country alone.
A joint league between Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania makes more sense due to lesser travel and few pro opportunities in each country alone.
They save by exclusively taking the bus, same as some minor leagues in North America. One reason why North American pros of that level rather sign in Europe if they can find a taker. Around the Baltic Sea bus travel throughout the season isn't viable anyway because of geography.
WarriorofTime
Registered User
- Jul 3, 2010
- 30,223
- 18,822
It is clear that the KHL does much better at attracting marginal NHL talents (players that would sign 2-way contracts or one way contracts valued at $1.1 million or less) than any other League in the world. The Euro Exodus had some effect, but better Russian/Belarusian development is off-setting some of that and they can still just fill imports with Canadians via more $. The other thing to keep in mind with Euro Exodus is they largely dispersed, so nobody was a major benefactor as opposed to a bunch of places being small benefactors. At sub-NHL level, it's more akin to Soccer where the best players scatter throughout leagues rather than all concentrate in one league than the next, etc.
I would say it's
KHL
AHL
GAP
SHL
NLA
Liiga
GAP
DEL
Extraliga
I would say it's
KHL
AHL
GAP
SHL
NLA
Liiga
GAP
DEL
Extraliga
ForsbergForever
Registered User
- May 19, 2004
- 3,334
- 2,060
mattihp
Registered User
Liiga has gotten much worse and there is no way the AHL is better than the SHL. Otherwise the order is correct. I would have it like this:
KHL
SHL
AHL
NLA
Liiga
DEL
Extra liga
The AHL has too many players gifted a roster spot for development to beat the SHL.
WarriorofTime
Registered User
- Jul 3, 2010
- 30,223
- 18,822
The Development Player spots is what makes the AHL tricky to rank. You are correct that many players are gifted spots, but at the same time, the tru AHL vets and 2-way contract players are high quality, and many of the development players are as well because they are at or close to NHL level that just need a bit more seasoning before they become Regular NHL players. Going from AHL to EuroPro and having a good career in good leagues is pretty common for players that run out of Development Player status and don't get NHL contracts, but hard to say how much better they get from say 23 -> 27 in those instances.
mattihp
Registered User
A kobe beef salad has one part of the best meat you can eat. But a whole steak has just steak and lots of it
The biggest problem with the AHL isn't the player pool in itself as much as it is their purpose of being there. Talented players are in the league only to eventually develop into NHLers, not to play good hockey as teams or even just win games. Teammates are often rivals competing for the same place in the Sun.
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