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Top 20 Leagues?

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By the way, how common is it for foreign prospects to make the NHL through Liiga?

It seems that the Swedish system attracts quite an amount of young Central European talent. Just from the top of my head, some players who’ve made the NHL through Swedish juniors and the SHL are Anze Kopitar, David Pastrnak, Jakub Vrana, Kevin Fiala, Dean Kukan, Peter Cehlarik, and Christian Jaros.
 
Yozhik v tumane said:
No, of course not, but Sweden as well as Switzerland, Germany and others have also had great tournaments from underdog positions, however, I admire the way Finland quite regularly punch above its weight class in major tournaments. Sweden will always have players taking games off in the WHCs. Finns play their system to a T, grinds it out and always makes it very hard on the opposition, while many Swedish players seem prone to arrogance. When Sweden was eliminated by Finland last year, the way some of the players conducted themselves when they were up by one goal would have had them benched on their NHL teams. They were absolutely coasting.

I think that one might argue that Finnish hockey education produces many gritty, team-first, hard working, well-conditioned players, and in tournaments they all seem to comply under a tight defensive system of boxing out their opponents, but I still don’t think that it is the same thing as saying that the Liiga is the best league in Europe. It’s a very competitive league, and obviously produces great players, but I’m not convinced it’s better than the SHL.
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Finland is quite regulary above his weight class? This is the suitable weightclass. You can t in no kind of sport to regulary play above your weight class. This is impossible.
 
Yozhik v tumane said:
By the way, how common is it for foreign prospects to make the NHL through Liiga?

It seems that the Swedish system attracts quite an amount of young Central European talent. Just from the top of my head, some players who’ve made the NHL through Swedish juniors and the SHL are Anze Kopitar, David Pastrnak, Jakub Vrana, Kevin Fiala, Dean Kukan, Peter Cehlarik, and Christian Jaros.
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Maybe! But the finns have in the last decade to create some "special" players. The big weakness of swedish hockey(yes even the mighty swedes have some weaken) ist they have to much uniform players and a lack of snipers.
 
Lambo said:
Maybe! But the finns have in the last decade to create some "special" players. The big weakness of swedish hockey(yes even the mighty swedes have some weaken) ist they have to much uniform players and a lack of snipers.
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Lambo said:
Finland is quite regulary above his weight class? This is the suitable weightclass. You can t in no kind of sport to regulary play above your weight class. This is impossible.
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Maybe a little clumsily put, I meant it as a compliment. When Finland’s eliminated Canada, Russia, or Sweden, oftentimes they have managed so as major underdogs, when comparing rosters. Of course the very top is the suitable class for Finland, but they have caused a lot of damage without Crosby, Ovechkin, Karlsson, and even, like last year, without Aho, Barkov, and Laine.

It’s amazing what hard work and commitment to a tight system can achieve. Kind of makes me wonder if that’s at least part of why Finland’s NHL stars have declined the national team lately? Seems like many Canadians, Americans and Swedes regards the WHCs as a time for having fun with hockey after a grueling NHL season, and only really starts working late in the elimination rounds. More pressure playing for Finland?

Lambo said:
Maybe! But the finns have in the last decade to create some "special" players. The big weakness of swedish hockey(yes even the mighty swedes have some weaken) ist they have to much uniform players and a lack of snipers.
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I agree. I think Finland, albeit relative lack of depth and no elite defensemen (Heiskanen might be on his way), should be a match for Sweden in a best-on-best tourney today.
 
In my opinion:

1. NHL (no one argues with this)

2. KHL (few poeple who would argue with this as well)

3. SHL (given the players the league attracts and the CHL results, I think this is quite clear as well).

4-7 are really close in my opinion. Liiga and NLA should probably be above Czech, but other than that there is a lot of room for debate here.
4. Liiga
5. NLA
6. AHL
7. Czech

8. DEL (clearly weaker than the leagues above, but also clearly stronger than the leagues below).

9-12 is also really close. Difficult to compare as VHL is huge and has quite some variation in quality. Extraliga seems to be improving again after some years in decline.
9. EBEL
10. Allsvenskan
11. VHL
12. Tipsport Extraliga (Slovakia)

13. ECHL (As already discussed in this thread you can find a lot of examples to place this higher up. But from what i have seen (I have no statistical analysis on this) a lot (but not all) average ECHL players struggle in the leagues above, but do well in the leagues below.

After this it gets really difficult to rank the leagues. But the next tier would be:
NLB, Ligue Magnus, Metal Ligaen, Get ligaen, Mestis, DEL 2, Czech 2, EIHL, Belarus

And after that:
Kazakhstan, Division 1 (Sweden), Slovakia 2, Alps HL, Czech 3, Oberliga, Erste Liga and probably quite a few more.

I left out NCAA as I find it really difficult to place. But should probably be close to ECHL?
 
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Yozhik v tumane said:
By the way, how common is it for foreign prospects to make the NHL through Liiga?

It seems that the Swedish system attracts quite an amount of young Central European talent. Just from the top of my head, some players who’ve made the NHL through Swedish juniors and the SHL are Anze Kopitar, David Pastrnak, Jakub Vrana, Kevin Fiala, Dean Kukan, Peter Cehlarik, and Christian Jaros.
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I don't know about foreigners, but there has been coming Laine, Aho, Rantanen, Heiskanen and Kakko from Liiga in the last 5 years.
 
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Omotenashi said:
In my opinion:

1. NHL (no one argues with this)

2. KHL (few poeple who would argue with this as well)

3. SHL (given the players the league attracts and the CHL results, I think this is quite clear as well).

4-7 are really close in my opinion. Liiga and NLA should probably be above Czech, but other than that there is a lot of room for debate here.
4. Liiga
5. NLA
!!!6. AHL!!!
7. Czech
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Everything else I agree with but this :help:
 
Many hockey-fans would struggle to name 20 leagues not to mention being able to evaluate the standard of all of them and put them in an order.
 
Omotenashi said:
In my opinion:

1. NHL (no one argues with this)

2. KHL (few poeple who would argue with this as well)

3. SHL (given the players the league attracts and the CHL results, I think this is quite clear as well).

4-7 are really close in my opinion. Liiga and NLA should probably be above Czech, but other than that there is a lot of room for debate here.
4. Liiga
5. NLA
6. AHL
7. Czech

8. DEL (clearly weaker than the leagues above, but also clearly stronger than the leagues below).
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The difference between very good and weak NHL teams is much bigger as the difference between Liiga/NLA/Czech/DEL.
Especially between good teams of these leagues its pretty equal.
The CHL ranking 2019/20 based on results
SHL
NLA
DEL
Liiga
Czech
Ebel
 
Last edited:
For years there has been predictions that the KHL will collapse.

That is yet to happen. It still can happen. It probably will happen.
 
VLK said:
For years there has been predictions that the KHL will collapse.

That is yet to happen. It still can happen. It probably will happen.
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The league will not collapse, that's for sure. As long as the Russian economy does not hit rock bottom, the major teams will continue to be sponsored. Depending on the economic outcome, we might watch teams getting dropped but I believe the worst case scenario is having a league size comparable to the Soviet league.
 
Namejs said:
That's a lot of words about a whole lot of nothing. I don't care about Lebler or any individual player. You clearly don't understand the concept of NHLe or point equivalency in general.

The usage rate average out when all players are analyzed together. We're talking about the average stats of dozens or even 100+ players here, lol.

EBEL is clearly worse than ECHL. I understand that you're really invested in Austrian hockey, but try to turn off your cognitive biases for a second.
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For whats it worth, as a finnish Liiga fan I would way, I mean WAAY rather have an PPG EBEL player than PPG ECHL player sign with my Liiga team. PPG ECHL player are usuaöly not good for Liiga while EBEL starsusually do just fine in Liiga.
 
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Eye of Ra said:
What would your top 20 Leagues be? Not including juniors, college, second leagues (ahl etc).

IMO:

1. NHL
2. KHL
3. NLA
4. Liiga
5. SHL
6. DEL
7. Czech EL
8. Ebel
9. EIHL
10. Metal Ligaen
11. Get-ligaen
12. Alps Hockey League
13. Tipsport Liga
14. Polska Hokej Liga
15. Ligue Magnus
16. Belarusian Extraleague A
17. Kazakhstan League
18. Erste Liga
19. Asia League Ice Hockey
20. BeNe League
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SHL is above Liiga due to the depth of the league. I'm also not convinced that the NLA is better than the Nordic leagues, yet. The average bottom 6 forward in the SHL is a lot better than the average bottom 6 forward in the NLA for example.
 
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