Tuukka Mäntylä

Playing career

Tuukka Mäntylä started his career in the youth system of Tampere Tappara and first played in Finland's top league, Liiga, during the 1999-2000 season. He helped Tappara win the Finnish championship in 2003, then left for Sweden to play for Luleå HF in the Swedish Elite League, now known as the SHL. After two seasons there, he went back to Tappara for another two years before returning to Sweden with Frölunda HC from 2007 to 2009. On 7 April 2009, he left Frölunda and signed a deal to rejoin Tappara. Late in October 2009, while with Tappara, Mäntylä hit Helsinki IFK defenseman Mikko Kurvinen from behind into the boards, an injury that kept Kurvinen out for six games. Mäntylä got a match penalty for the play. Before Tappara's next game in Helsinki on 26 November 2009, IFK placed a full-page ad in a Tampere newspaper saying "Welcome to Helsinki, Tuukka." The SM-liiga office, which had okayed the ad beforehand, later gave IFK a warning for going "beyond the bounds of good taste." Early in the first period of that game, IFK defenseman Ilari Melart jumped Mäntylä in the corner, sparking a fight that got both players thrown out. From the 2011-12 season through 2015-16, Mäntylä split his time between Tappara and several KHL teams: HC Neftekhimik Nizhnekamsk, Metallurg Novokuznetsk, Amur Khabarovsk, and KHL Medvescak Zagreb. In July 2016, he became one of the first players to sign with the brand-new KHL club Kunlun Red Star from China.