The league was record tight in the season 2008-09 with the bottom-place SaiPa trailing the regular season winning JYP Jyväskylä by only 46 points. In comparison the same number in previous four seasons has been 81, 64, 90 and 84 points starting with the 2007-08 season. Prior to that, a win awarded only two points in SM-Liiga and thus the records are not comparable. Even so the point difference between the league winner and bottom-placed team in season 2003-04 was 53 points.

The Cruelty of the Playouts

After a tight race for the 10th place Lukko Rauma, Ässät Pori, Tappara Tampere and SaiPa Lappeenranta were privileged to the questionable honor of participating in the first ever SM-Liiga playouts. Lukko’s chances of the playoffs were alive until the very last round but a loss to Ilves dropped them out of the top 10. Ässät had had a difficult season but towards the spring had improved and risen to even fight for the playoff spot. The powerhouse of the olden times, Tappara, had one of the worst seasons in its history and SaiPa was the only team that was out of the playoffs well before the season ended.

In the playouts Lukko faced SaiPa and Ässät met Tappara. It was obvious from the start that SaiPa was better prepared than their opponent that was still grieving the lost playoff berth. Ässät on the other hand was starting to spiral out of control getting very little done against Tappara. SaiPa and Tappara swept the series 3-0. The second round of the playouts was a local series between Lukko and Ässät. Lukko got over their disappointment but Ässät didn’t find a way to improve. They remained scoreless in two games and lost the series 3-1.

Ässät had been a losing team for several weeks by now and they had to face the Mestis winner Sport Vaasa in a qualifying series for the SM-Liiga spot. The return of a real qualifying between the two series was something most fans had been hoping and expecting for many years but still most expected that Ässät would be unbeatable by a mere Mestis team. The Vaasa Arena was naturally packed for every game but delightfully also Pori saw good attendances after the low figures in the playouts. It was clear that fans had found the qualifying series. With the lead of the “Solar King” Juhani Tamminen Sport took the first game to shock the Finnish hockey realm. The series remained tight and in the sixth game Sport had a chance to secure their SM-Liiga spot leading the series 3-2. Ässät lead for most of the game but in the last four minutes Sport scored two goals and took the game into overtime. Sport was only one goal away from the promotion and controlled the first extra period but couldn’t score. Early in the second extra period Ässät got a lucky goal and a collective sigh of relief could be heard everywhere in Pori. The seventh game was tight but this time Ässät was clearly the better team winning the game at home 3-0.

The Middle-Men

The four teams that finished in places seven through ten in the standings had to play a miniseries to get into the actual playoffs. In this “Wild Card” round HIFK Helsinki faced TPS Turku and Ilves Tampere played Pelicans Lahti. TPS with the lead of the excellent Czech goalie Alexander Salak took two easy victories of HIFK making them the first SM-Liiga team to end their season. The old saying of HIFK being a good place to work because of  “good salaries and long summer vacations” was accurate once again. HIFK’s bright side of the season was Kim Hirschovits winning the regular season scoring title. TPS went on to give a tight series against the future champion JYP but lost the series in six games.

The series between Ilves and Pelicans was the tighter of the two first round playoff series with two last games going to overtime. Pelicans won the series and Ilves’s first season after Raimo Helminen’s retirement ended early. Overall the season was probably the worst ever for the Tampere teams. Not only did their senior teams fare bad but none of their junior teams did better either. The only ray of sun shine for the city’s hockey society was the silver medal Ilves brought from Women’s SM-Sarja. Pelicans on the other hand went on to finish their season against Blues Espoo in the quarterfinals. The series was hard fought and went all the way to the seventh game. Pelicans was up 3-2 in the series but the long season tired them out and Blues scored 15 goals in the last two games.

The Top Dogs

The top of the standings was even tighter than the bottom. While JYP Jyväskylä was the top team all season long the race behind them was on until the very last round. In the end five teams ended within three points of each other. Of these KalPa Kuopio was the last team to enter the quarterfinals directly. KalPa had finished in the bottom two of the league every year since promoting in 2005. They were the surprise team of the season with the lead of the experienced Sami Kapanen. With the success Kuopio woke into a hockey boom and all the playoff games were quickly sold out. KalPa downed HPK Hämeenlinna in six games in the quarters but lost to JYP in the semifinals. HPK finished 3rd in the regular season despite playing the season’s first 10 games on the road on the account of their home arena being renovated.

Jokerit Helsinki and Kärpät Oulu faced off in another quarterfinal. The two teams have hardly missed a spring to play each other in the playoffs in the 2000s and Kärpät has won all but one of those series. Such was the outcome this year too and Kärpät bested Jokerit fairly easy in five games. Jokerit had trouble scoring due to their ultra-defensive play style that relied heavily on solid goaltending by Juuso Riksman. Kärpät went on to face Blues in the semis. Blues had had a successful adventure in CHL reaching the semifinals while Kärpät had lost all their games in the group phase. The series was one for the books with Blues taking the lead in every game but Kärpät coming back often enough to win the series 4-2. Blues’s players took the three top positions in the playoffs scoring board and Ben Eaves made the new playoff record with 24 points.

JYP and Kärpät played in the final but JYP’s road to the championship has already been documented in an another article (link below) so I won’t go in detail here. It suffices to say here that JYP was the dominant team this season and fully deserved their title.

Links:

JYP Jyväskylä: A Portrait of a Champion

SM-Liiga Regular Season Stats and Box Scores

SM-Liiga Team Rosters

SM-Liiga Playoff Stats and Box Scores