Jokerit Helsinki in 2018-19

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2017-18 featured a blistering start for Jokerit, and although they faded down the stretch, the team from Finland’s capital finished up in the league’s top five for the third time in its four KHL seasons.  And though Jokerit failed to get past the second round of the playoffs, they did give eventual finalists CSKA Moscow a pretty good fight before succumbing.  That second-half stumble raised some eyebrows, but overall the results must be deemed satisfactory.  Oh, and Jokerit also introduced a jaw-dropping young forward to the hockey world along the way!  So what’s in store for this season, and can Jokerit make a real run for the Gagarin Cup?  Read on…

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Jokerit Helsinki in 2017-18: 29 W — 4 OT/SO W — 8 OT/SO L — 15 L (2nd in Bobrov Div., 3rd in West Conf., 3rd in KHL.  Lost in Conf. SF).

2017-18 Quarterly Splits**: .833 / .690 / .476/ .452

Current Roster (via team website).

Head Coach:  Lauri Marjamäki

Off-season Moves:

In: F Viliam Cacho (Green Bay Gamblers [USHL]); D Alex Grant (Iowa Wild [AHL]); F Aleksi Halme (TUTO Hockey [FIN2]); G Jānis Kalniņš (Dinamo Riga); D Viktor Lööv (Iowa Wild [AHL]); F Sakari Manninen (Örebro [SWE]); F Joona Monto (SaPKo [FIN2]); F Geoff Platt (CSKA Moscow); D Eemeli Räsänen (Kingston Frontenacs [OHL]); D Roope Reini (TPS U20 [FIN jr.]); D Karl Stollery (Dinamo Riga); D Eetu Torpström (UMass – Amherst [NCAA])

 Out: D Niclas Andersén (Brynäs [SWE]); D Matt Gilroy (Rapperswil [SUI]); F Tommi Huhtala (Adler Mannheim [GER]); F Olli Palola (Kunlun Red Star Beijing); G Karri Rämö (Avangard Omsk Oblast); F Juho Rautanen (Tappara [FIN]); D Rasmus Rissanen (Örebro [SWE]); F Eeli Tolvanen (Nashville Predators [NHL])

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We’ll start at the back, where Jokerit’s goaltending situation was very good indeed in 2017-18.  Ryan Zapolski (39 gp, .931 sv%) and Karri Rämö (18 gp, .930 sv%) combined to give the Helsinki side the fourth-best team save percentage in the league (just over .930), and that meant that backup Rämö earned himself a starting gig — now on hold due to injury — with Avangard.  But Zapolski remains in the Jokerit fold, and early signs this season are good that he can match 2017-18’s performance.  And Jokerit have done very well in replacing Rämö in the backup spot by signing 26-year-old Latvian puck-stopper Jānis Kalniņš from Dinamo Riga.  Kalniņš was one of the few bright spots on a dire Dinamo team last season, posting a .928 sv% in 42 games.  So despite Rämö’s departure, Jokerit would seem to be entering 2018-19 with as strong a goaltending tandem as they had last year.

Sami Lepistö. (Image Source)

Jokerit’s defence was also very strong in 2017-18; just over 26 shots conceded per 60 minutes had them fourth in the KHL in that category.  But there was a hole to be filled this summer on the blueline as well; Matt Gilroy (55 gp, 7-20-27, +20), who is off to the Swiss league, may have been Jokerit’s best all-round rearguard last season.  The incoming Karl Stollery (53 gp, 3-11-14, -6 with Dinamo Riga) would seem to be the obvious replacement, and indeed has been drawing in on the top pairing alongside Jokerit’s 2017-18 top-scoring d-man, Sami Lepistö (56 gp, 7-22-29, +9).  Both Stollery and Lepistö are very good puck-moving defencemen, and that pairing should get most of the big opportunities to support the skilled forwards.

The second pairing is an interesting one too, with former AHLer Alex Grant arriving after a season of 73 gp, 13-23-36 with Iowa — impressive numbers, and actually a bit down from what he had done the previous couple of seasons.  He’ll join Tommi Kivistö on the second defence duo; Kivistö’s once quite-reasonable scoring ability has never really joined him in the KHL (this will be his fourth season in the league), but he has turned into quite a responsible shutdown guy (55 gp, 2-4-6, +22 last season with Jokerit).  And at 27, there’s still time for him to rediscover his scoring touch.  The third pairing will, on early evidence, mostly feature newcomer Viktor Lööv with Oliver Laurdisen, and that should be more than adequate for the task at hand.  Finally, keep an eye out for 19-year-old Eemeli Räsänen as the season goes along.  Jokerit will bring him along slowly in his first pro season, but he’s 6’7″ (210 lbs.) and can move the puck well too.

No need, I am sure, to remind hockey fans of Jokerit’s big story up front, but I’ll do it anyway: 18-year-old Eeli Tolvanen scored 19-17-36 in 49 games — tied for the team lead in goals and second in points by one.  It was a tremendous performance given his age, and he is now off to the NHL to see what he can get up to there.  It would be unreasonable to demand that Jokerit produce another such star for 2018-19, and indeed there does not seem to be one in the mix just yet.  Tolvanen is obviously the big departure from the forward group, but the team will likely also miss Olli Palola; his 24 points in 50 games last season looks merely middling, but he did it in under 14 minutes per game, and followed it up with six goals in ten playoff contests.

Steve Moses during the 2014-15 season. (Image Source)

However, Jokerit fans need not worry particularly; there are many things to like about the Helsinki forward corps in 2018-19.  The first line so far has seen undersized but skilled newcomer Sakari Manninen alongside a couple of Jokerit veterans in Peter Regin (56 gp, 8-23-31) and Steve Moses (13 gp, 4-1-5 after returning from an attempt to find an NHL job).  Neither Regin nor Moses posted great numbers in 2017-18, but the 32-year-old Regin has had much better scoring seasons in his past, and something of a bounce-back campaign is a reasonable expectation.  And Moses, you may recall, set the KHL’s goals-in-a-season record in 2014-15, when he scored 36 for Jokerit in 60 games (that mark has since been bested by Mr. Mozyakin at Metallurg).  Since then, Moses has only scored 17 KHL goals in 58 games over parts of three seasons (he has spent some time in the AHL as well), but he’s still only 29, and if he finds that range again, the rest of the league will need to beware.

Jokerit’s nominal second line has two proven scorers on it in Brian O’Neill (44 gp, 14-16-30) and John Norman (50 gp, 8-20-28), alongside journeyman Jesse Joensuu (49 gp, 7-9-16).  Joensuu’s numbers do not scream of top-six scoring ability, but he is genuinely good at the defensive side of the job, and that may allow O’Neill and Norman to roam a bit.  Of course, as I write that, Joensuu has more points this season (3) than O’Neill and Norman have combined (2) — small samples can be fun!  The apparent third line will have another pair of known scorers; Geoff Platt was prodigious in that regard earlier in his career, although he has wandered in the wilderness a bit the last couple of years while with CSKA, and Niklas Jensen was actually Jokerit’s top point-getter in 2017-18 (54 gp, 19-18-37).  With them has been Pekka Jormakka (47 gp, 12-8-20), who can certainly contribute as well; Jokerit may have found themselves three actual scoring lines here.  As for the fourth trio, that so far has been Henri Ikonen with Mika Niemi and Marko Anttila, and there’s nothing to complain about there at all.  This is a very nicely-balanced and deep forward group, all-in-all.

Everything has gone swimmingly for Jokerit so far in 2018-19; they are 4-0 with a 17-6 GF-GA. The top line has combined for ten points and eleven different players have scored goals, with newcomer Manninen potting three of them.  We should not get too carried away; it’s early days yet, of course, and Jokerit’s schedule has not been the toughest (their first three games were all at home against teams making the looooooooong trip from the Far East).  But so far, so good, and new coach Marjamäki, whose tenure in charge of the Finnish national team was neither popular nor particularly successful, may justifiably feel a slight lessening of the pressure.  The question for Jokerit, as it nearly always is, is whether this is the year they finally plant themselves firmly up there with CSKA and SKA, the giants of the West Conference.  They have been close to that level before, and may well have the talent necessary for the task.  This team is a Gagarin Cup contender, no doubt about it, and now we just need to find out how serious a contender it is.

Next up: CSKA Moscow

** = This is a new thing in the previews this year, showing the percentage of available points that the team picked up in each quarter of 2017-18 regular season (each quarter comprised 14 games, and thus 42 possible points).  Numbers in red indicate that the team was in the bottom five (plus ties) in the KHL for pts% in that quarter, while green indicates that the team was in the top five.  The full table of KHL 2017-18 splits can be seen here.