Reflections on the 2023-24 SDHL Season

Editor's Note: This story is brought to you by guest contributor Rachel Coleman.

Sweden's SDHL is the top league in Europe and one of the few places outside North America where women can play professionally. The new season begins on September 13th, but before then let's take a look back at the 2023-24 season. Last season saw a new team enter the league for the first time in six years, the continued dominance of Luleå in the far north, and a flurry of player movements due to the end of the PHF and the launch of the PWHL.

The SDHL (Svensk Damhockeyligan) consists of ten teams, which play each other in a double round-robin during the season, 36 games each. After the season, the top eight teams go to playoffs and a secure place in the following season's SDHL. The bottom two clubs play the top two teams from the lower NDHL (Nationella Damhockeyligan) in a qualification series for the remaining two spaces.

From 2017 to 2022, the same ten teams made up the SDHL, with the bottom two teams seeing off their challengers each time, but in early 2023 Goteborg unexpectedly withdrew its team from the league mid-season, due to financial pressures on the club. The season continued with just nine teams, and the qualification series at the end ran with just ninth-placed AIK and the top two from the NDHL, Frölunda, and Skellefteå, ensuring that a new club would enter for 2023-24. AIK managed to retain their place in the SDHL. Frölunda, to the surprise of nobody, secured the other spot.

Frölunda Enters the Fray

Frölunda entered the NDHL in 2022 with some very strong signings and the stated intention of winning promotion to the SDHL for 2023-24. They promptly stomped everyone in their path on the way to the qualification series, their only point loss in the entire season from being taken to overtime by AIK in the qualification series. High-profile players with previous solid careers in the SDHL included Canadian netminder Stephanie Neatby, Swedish internationals Andrea Dalen and Hanna Olsson, and Finnish international Michelle Karvinen. Frolunda also secured Sarah-Ève Coutu-Godbout, formerly of the Toronto Six and with one season playing for AIK. The team had come together amazingly in the NDHL, but were they ready for the pressures of the SDHL?

From the first game, it seemed so. SDE pushed them to overtime in their first game, but a goal from Emilia Vesa after three and a half minutes gave them the win. They won their first five games before coming up against mighty Luleå, and losing in close succession to them, MoDo, Linköping, and Djurgårdens. But after that they settled in, winning 22 of the 36 main season games, and securing themselves a respectable fourth place by season's end. In the playoff quarterfinals, they battled fifth-place Djurgårdens through a full five games, including two running to overtime, to secure themselves a place in the semi-finals against Lulea. The league leviathans promptly dispatched them in three games and went on to win the playoffs, but Frölunda can be proud of a strong first season in the SDHL.

Luleå's Dynasty

Luleå continues to be the big beast of the SDHL. Since 2015 (when the league was formed from the previous Riksserien), Luleå have won the playoff championships in every year but two: in 2017 when Djurgårdens took the title, and in 2020 when the playoffs were cut short by the pandemic. Luleå lost only three games in the entire season, to MoDo, Brynäs, and Djurgårdens (the teams ranked 2, 3, and 5 respectively by the end of the season). They finished the main season with 96 points, far ahead of second-place MoDo, and with a +/- of 111 goals, almost double MoDo's 51. They remained unbeaten throughout the playoffs, winning each of the best-of-five quarterfinals, semifinals, and finals in three games.

Luleå's captain, and Finnish national team captain, is the amazing Jenni Hiirikoski, fondly known in this house as SuperJenni. A superbly skilled and experienced defender, with 16 Women's World championships and well over 400 international games for Finland under her skates, she also has 3 Olympic bronze medals, a silver WW medal, and 8 WW bronze medals. In the spring of 2023, she led Finland at Women's Worlds just weeks after a scary skate cut to the neck during the SDHL playoff finals. Aside from Hiirkoski, Luleå boasts many international players: Finnish defender Ronja Savolainen and forwards Petra Nieminen, Noora Tulus, and Viivi Vainikka, alongside Swedish netminder Sara Grahn, defender Anna Kjellbin and forwards Anna Kjellbin and Emma Nordin. Czech internationals Dominika Lásková and Daniela Pejšová rounded out this smörgåsbord of international talent, but Luleå's magic comes from the way these brilliant players combine and bring out the best in each other.

However, change is coming: Tulus and Pejšová signed to multiyear contracts in the PWHL, and Savolainen and Kjellbin drafted, if not yet signed at the time of writing. Will Luleå's magic last with these players gone?

PWHL Shuffle

The PHF/PWHL effect on the SDHL is another thread to the 2023-24 SDHL season. When the PHF was bought out and closed down in July 2023, many players started looking elsewhere for somewhere to keep playing but still entered the PWHL inaugural draft.

Lásková came from the Toronto Six to Luleå for part of the season and was then drafted by PWHL Montreal. Similarly, Aneta Tejralová moved from the Boston Pride to MoDo and then to PWHL Ottawa, while Fanni Garát-Gasparics went from the Metropolitan Riveters to Brynäs IF and then to PWHL Ottawa. MoDo scooped up former PHF players Ebba Berglund, Taylor House, and Ronja Mogren; Leksands picked up Autumn MacDougall and Linköping gladly took Justine Reyes back after her stunning year in the Connecticut Whale and also signed Sally Hoerr after she had a stint in Lakers Karnten.

PHF players weren't the only ones affected by the upheaval in North America: Malia Schneider moved from PWHLPA Sonnet to Brynäs and then PWHL Ottawa (and has come back to the SDHL for 2024-25, signing with SDE), and Laura Dostaler came from PHWLPA Adidas to AIK.

The End Game

At the end of this season of change, the SDHL playoffs proceeded pretty much as expected: the top teams beat the lower-ranked teams at every stage with no surprises. HV71 and AIK were the lowest-ranked teams heading for the qualification series. AIK had an especially bad season, with just three wins, two in overtime, in all 36 games, and a +/- of -158, far worse than HV71's -57. HV71 managed to beat Södertälje (who had former Buffalo Beaut Lovisa Berndtsson playing in goal) to retain their spot, but AIK lost to regular challenger Skellefteå. The SDHL will start the new season with a new team for the second year running.