The Swedish journalist imagines the success of the Finns in the NHL playoffs.
Swedish journalist Per Bjarman praised the NHL spring of Finnish hockey stars in Aftonbladet.
Sweden’s biggest NHL stars are on summer vacation, while our blue-and-white neighbors are breaking records for how many stars are in the biggest games of the season, writes Berman in his column.
In his opinion, the Finns completely stole the show when three of the four teams contesting the conference finals were headlined by a handful of players in blue and white.
For example, Bjerman praises Alexander Barkov of the Florida Panthers as “as intelligent as a book” and he calls Anton Lundell a “mini-Barkov”.
The Swedish NHL correspondent credits Barkov especially with the eclipse of the Boston and Toronto stars in the previous rounds.
Carolina Hurricanes’ Sebastian Aho, Teuvo Teravenen, Jesperi Kotkaniemi, Jesse Puljujärvi and Antti Ranta also received accolades. Bjarman called Aho and Teravi a “toxic couple”. In his opinion, Kotkaniemi has been a big exclamation point between Jesper Fasti and Jordan Martinucci, and what Ranta Bjarman describes as the best backup option throughout the semifinal round.
Bjarman, on the other hand, calls the Dallas Stars the Texas version of the Finnish team. According to him, “killer” Roop Hintze and “Finland’s own Erik Karlsson”, i.e. Miro Hiskanen, shine in the stars. In addition, Joel Kiwiranta, Easa Lindell and Jani Hakanapa complete out Dallas’ blue and white roster.
– I’m a little jealous, I can’t help it, Bjarman wrote in his column.
– We just have to admit that Finland currently has many more successful stars than Sweden.
