SM-liiga is Finland’s premier hockey league. That league has had its fair share of players that have gone on to wear the Black and Gold. Well, now that league gets to try some Merlot. Yesterday, SM-liiga announced that Bruins winger Daniel Paille will be joining the league for the duration of the lockout. Daniel Paille will be playing for Ilves(Lynx) Tampere. This makes Paille the twelth Bruin to test the waters overseas.
Paille’s departure leaves only four players on the roster who aren’t playing somewhere else. Those remaining players are: Brad Marchand(bouncing between Mass and Nova Scotia), Shawn Thornton(becoming a fixture over at CSNNE), Milan Lucic(about to become a dad), and Tim Thomas(reportedly to be in a survivalist shelter somewhere in the woods of Colorado.)
For those who haven’t been around these last few seasons, Paille is one of the Merlot Men. The Merlot men is the code name for the Bruins’ fourth line. That line is known for good two-way hockey, scoring goals in unusual situations, being a key part of the penalty kill, and they have been rumored to drop the gloves on the rare occasion when the day of the week ends in ‘Y’. #20 had good reason to remain in Boston during the lockout. Paille is still the current NHLPA rep for the Boston Bruins, and he needed to remain in town to better coordinate information between the NHLPA administration and his brother Bruins.
Paille joins Rich Peverley as the second Bruin in SM-liiga, and will join Max Talbot as the second NHL player on the Ilves. Paille finished with twenty four points(nine goals) last season for the Bruins. He played in sixty nine of the games, and averaged around eleven minutes of play time. Paille has one hundred and twenty four points in his career(sixty goals) and has maintained a plus/minus of +14 playing in the NHL. (Compilation of his stats platying for both Boston and Buffalo.)