Malmö’s 2023-24 Swedish Hockey League season can be seen as an improvement on their previous campaign.
The Redhawks finished 2022-23 bottom of the table on 61 points and managed to escape relegation to the HockeyAllsvenskan by beating Brynäs 4-1 in the best-of-seven relegation series.
This time around they were able to avoid going through the nerve-jangling tension of the Kvalmatch nedflyttning (qualifying match relegation); however they only finished one place above the drop-zone and with four more points than they amassed in the previous season (from 61 to 65).
That means Björn Liljander, Malmö’s Sporting Director, will be drawing up a plan on how he can improve his roster this off-season.
That process publicly began today with Liljander conducting a 37-minute interview with Malmö’s in-house media team. Whilst the video is in Swedish, there are some details that have been published on the website accompanying the interview in which there is a list of players who will not be returning to the team for the 24-25 season. They are as follows:
- Nuutti Viitasalo
- Alan Quine
- Janne Kuokkanen
- Kim Rosdahl
- Adam Werner
- Joakim Ryan
- Lauri Pajuniemi
- Tomi Sallinen.
It was already known that the excellent Finnish pair Kuokkanen and Pajuniemi had opted to move to the Swiss National League, reportedly having agreements in place with Lausanne, whilst goaltender Adam Werner is joining TPS in Finland’s Liiga.
Former NHL defenseman Joakim Ryan has spent the past three seasons in Malmö and his experience will be missed, although financial decisions (on either side) may have played a role in the two parties going their separate ways.
That’s all part of the balance every Sporting Director or General Manager has to get right when reshaping a roster, but that’s especially the case for Liljander in working with one of the smallest – if not the smallest – budgets in the SHL . Even if he might prefer to keep some of those players, it may not be the best use of the money he has available to him this off-season.
New recruits are already being lined up. Sydsvenskan reported last week that Malmö are close to agreeing a deal to sign forward Joona Ikonen, who currently plays for Ilves in Finland. He turns 26 years old in May and is having the best season of his career to date, amassing 47 points from 58 regular season games. The same media report also confirmed that the Redhawks have an interest in signing Robin Hanzl, who is a free agent after spending the past three seasons playing for Timrå.
Meanwhile Expressen reported recently that the team has a deal in place with Finnish defenseman Lassi Thomson, the 19th overall selection in the 2019 NHL draft. Whilst Thomson has made 18 NHL appearances for the Ottawa Senators, he has spent all of the current season playing for their AHL affiliate in Belleville and apparently has decided to move back to Europe this summer.
Expressen also reported back in January that young Norwegian centre Petter Vesterheim, currently with Mora, has agreed to step up to the SHL with Malmö this summer.
Although Liljander doesn’t have an easy job whilst working within budgetary restraints, he’s started making some moves in the hope that his team will be able to look up towards the play-off spots, rather than looking over their shoulder once again in 2024-25
