First part of the Euro Hockey Tour - the Karjala Cup was played last week in Helsinki. For those of you who don't know, EHT is an unofficial European championship tournament with Finland, Sweden, the Czech Republic and Russia. It gathers the best players in Europe four times a year. Here are some of my thoughts from the games:

Alexander Radulov was the scoring leader in the tournament putting up 4+1 in three games. He's just amazingly good. If/when he comes back to the NHL, he'll make immediate impact with at least a 60 point campaign.

Jarkko Immonen was not far behind from Radulov with 3+2. He was once again playing on a line with Mikael Granlund, and they obviously have very good chemistry. He would make a very decent third-liner or even a 2nd line center in the NHL, but it seems that he rather gathers bigger paychecks from Russia.

Mikael Granlund was the other five-point-guy in the tournament with 0+5. He gave some really nice passes (I think all of them could be found in Youtube with keywords "granlund karjala 2011") and was magical in the power play.

Janne Pesonen was fourth in the scoring with 1+3. He was at the Jets' camp this season, but didn't make it to the NHL. He is good, but not NHL-good. Unless he played there with Immonen and Granlund

Sami Vatanen was the scoring leader of the D-men in the tournament with 2+1. He showed everyone why he is leading the D-men in scoring in the SM-liiga too. He will take the leap across the pond next season, and he has good odds to make it to the Anaheim roster.

Evgeny Kuznetsov scored twice in the tournament. I think he really is worth of all the hype. He was very dynamic.

Vladimir Tarasenko played there too. That's pretty much everything to tell about him. I watched two of three Russia's games, and I didn't notice him there at all.

Niko Hovinen was arguably the best goalie in the tournament. He finished the tournament with 0.70 GAA and .967 SV% and played very solid game. He has been the best goalie in SM-liiga whole season as well, so the Flyers obviously made a good signing there.

Jonas Gustafsson. Minnesota's sixth round pick from 2010 was called between Sweden's pipes with a busy schedule while two other Swedish goalies already chosen in the tournament were injured. He played just one game against Finland, but showed very mature game despite allowing three goals.

Side note: Swedish captain(!) Niklas Persson did something a hockey player never should do, when NHL veteran Ossi Väänänen came towards him. Here is a clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQsJXMLAc7g

__________________
*** Finnish hockey and fantasy hockey enthusiast
** Playing lots of NHL and SM-liiga fantasy leagues.
* Follow me in Twitter: @miikaarponen

14 teams dynasty keeper league
G, A, P, +/-, PIM, PPP, SHP, SOG, HIT, BLK / W, GAA, SV, SV%, SHO
C: Stamkos, Backstrom, E.Staal, J.Staal, Henrique
LW: Ovechkin, Datsyuk, Lupul, Lucic, Kunitz
RW: Malkin, Selanne, Read, C.Smith, Caron
D: Chara, Pitkanen, Kronwall, Timonen, Subban, Souray, Zidlicky
G: Luongo, Kiprusoff, Ward, Greiss
2009-10 5th, 2010-11 5th, 2011-12 1st