Hello to my Inferno family! Had a great time with everybody at the Summit. I thought I'd give you a bit more colour on the Mieho signing. We had three "high end" forwards that we were looking at - the other two with more traditional resume's for our league. Guys that had been good offensive contributors at much lower levels. But Thommo is someone that does his work. He watched hundreds of hours of film on all of them and learned the backstories on each. With Panu, he learned of the broken leg that he suffered that cost his a lot of games and hurt his statistics. He talked to players and coaches that rave about his speed and skill. He spent a great amount of time with Panu himself about what his motivation was to join the Devils and a lot of that was that he really wanted to elevate his offensive game - which he's very confident in - because he's been pigeonholed most of his career just because of his size and physicality.
Obviously the Liiga is the most defensive league in the world. A league that excellent offensive players routinely struggle to put up points. But when Thommo broke down his game film, he saw every quality in Panu that he needs to be a top offensive force in our league. His skating is next level, he's got a good shot, good hands and good instincts. As someone pointed out, Panu's resume at the highest levels of Finland and Sweden is significantly more impressive that Juusola's and he was a major offensive contributor in our league.
So while nothing is guaranteed in sport, I got extremely excited about this guy after talking to Thommo. To have a big guy with that kind of talent and physicality on one of our top lines to me is an absolute home run.
A couple more signings to come but I'm loving how this team is coming together. Significant upgrade from last year's for me.
Enjoy the rest of your summers!!!
