The Attractive Russian Super League

The Russia Super League, considered to be the next league behind the NHL, is continuing to attract top level players from outside of Russia. Swedish club Linköpings HC has decided to loan out two of their top players for one-year next season. Tony Mårtensson will go to AK Bars Kazan while Mattias Weinhandl will go to Dynamo Moscow. They will return to Linköpings HC for the 2009-10 season.

Both Mårtensson and Weinhandl had a stellar regular season with Linköpings, finishing 1-2 in the points scoring race in Elitserien. Weinhandl led the league in goals with 35 in 54 games. He was the New York Islanders' 3rd round choice (78th overall) in the 1999 NHL Entry Draft. He played three seasons with the Islanders and two with the Minnesota Wild.

RNK		TEAM	POS	GP	G	A	PIM	+/-	TOI/GP	TP
1	Tony Mårtensson	LHC	RW	55	17	50	36	4	21:16	67
2	Mattias Weinhandl	LHC	CE	54	35	27	69	7	18:20	62

In the the SM-Finals they lost to HV71 4-2 in games, but also had a impressive playoff campaign.

RNK		TEAM	POS	GP	G	A	PIM	+/-	TOI/GP	TP
1	Jukka Voutilainen	HV71	CE	17	9	12	12	9	20:08	21
2	Johan Davidsson	HV71	CE	17	8	12	2	7	22:16	20
3	Tony Mårtensson	LHC	RW	16	3	15	4	6	20:37	18
4	Mattias Weinhandl	LHC	CE	16	7	10	8	4	18:10	17

The Russian Super League has a newly infused cash flow from it's team ownerships. Oil, gas, railroad, and other business that the owners are invested in are are racking in huge profits in the world market's. They are pumping in money to attract NHL'ers and European professionals alike. New arenas and training facilities are being built. Advertisers are signing on and fans the are flocking to watch games. It will be interesting to see as the years progress how the Russian Super League will grow and will they be able to be on an even par with the NHL? We shall see.


4/7/08 HV 71 4 @ Linköping HC 6, (1-3, 1-1, 2-2) Elitserien SM-Final, Game 1
0-1, 03:32, Mattias Weinhandl (Tony Mårtensson, Mikael Håkanson) EQ