Report: Waltteri Merela signs in Swiss league
Another European player chose to leave the Tampa Bay Lightning organization to return to play in Europe as SC Bern announced that they had signed forward Waltteri Merela to a contract for the 2024-25 season. The 25-year-old Merela was scheduled to be a restricted free agent with arbitration rights, but appears to have chosen the stability of playing in the top tier of the Swiss hockey system in lieu of potentially shuttling back-and-forth between Tampa and Syracuse next season.
Merela was signed by Julien BriseBois just over a year ago after helping his Finnish team, Tappara, win back-to-back championships in the Liiga. Undrafted by teams in the NHL, Merela had carved out a pretty solid career in his native Finland as a 30-ish point player with a physical game. He somewhat surprisingly made the Lightning’s opening night roster, and appeared in 14 games without a point before being sent to Syracuse.
He was recalled in late January and scored his lone NHL goal on January 18th against the Minnesota Wild.
With the emergence of Mitchell Chaffee, Merela was re-assigned to Syracuse after five games with the Lightning and continued his strong season for the Crunch. In all, he appeared in 55 games at the AHL level and put up 34 points (15 goals, 19 assists). In the postseason, he added three goals to his resume, including a huge double-overtime winner against Rochester in the opening round.
It’s fun seeing Merela score on the breakaway, because if there was one thing he did well offensively during his brief time in Tampa, it was generate offense off of the rush. According to Natural Stat Trick, he produced 0.7 Rush Chanced/60 minutes at 5v5, a number that led the team.
Unfortunately, that was the only offense on the ice when he was out there, for both side. Merela was on the ice for 170:30 of 5v5 ice time and there were a total of 6 goals scored – 4 for the Lightning and 2 for their opponents. There just wasn’t a lot happening when he was out there. Scrolling through his numbers, he’s “top” five when it comes to fewest shot attempts (both for and against), scoring chances (both for and against), shots on goal (both for and against), and high-danger chances (just against, he was on the ice for the 9th fewest high-danger chances for per 60).
