A Flame from the Past: Kari Eloranta

Do you remember Kari Eloranta?

Every week, we’ll look at a forgotten Calgary Flames player in the weekly series “A Flame From the Past.” Of course, the player had to have played a significant number of games for the Flames – at least a full season. Each week, I’ll put every Flames season (since moving to Calgary) in the Wheel of Names. This week, it landed on the 1982-83 season, with the player we’ll look at in today’s article being Kari Eloranta.

Born in Lahti, Finland, on Feb. 29, 1956, Eloranta started his career in Finalnd, playing for a youth team, a third tier team, and a second tier team. He made his SM-Liiga debut in 1976-77 with Kiekkoreipas Lahti, now named the Lahti Pelicans, where Eloranta scored four goals and 10 points in 36 games. The defenceman played the same number of games in 1977-78, scoring six goals and 12 points.

For the 1978-79 season, Eloranta moved to Swedish team Leksands IF, where he played three seasons and scored 14 goals and 42 points in 105 games. Eloranta took his talents to North America for the 1981-82 season, mainly playing with the Central Hockey League’s Oklahoma City Stars, where he scored three goals and 30 points in 39 games.

That same season, the defenceman made his National Hockey League debut for the Calgary Flames, picking up five assists in 19 games. Later in the season, Eloranta was traded to the St. Louis Blues for future considerations, which turned out to be him. It’s a whole thing, Ryan Pike wrote about it here. With the Blues, he scored his first goal and added seven assists in 12 games, giving him a goal and 13 points in 31 games.

Eloranta became an NHL regular in 1982-83, scoring four goals and 44 points in 80 games, with the point total being a career-best. He also played nine post-season games, scoring a goal and four points. In 1983-84, Eloranta scored a career-high five goals and added 34 assists in 78 games, adding two assists in six post-season games.

His last full season was in 1984-85, where he scored two goals and 13 points in 65 games, before returning to Europe to play for HV71 Jönköping in Sweden during the 1985-86 season. Eloranta returned to the Flames briefly for the 1986-87 season, scoring a goal and seven points in 13 games, along with two assists in the post-season. That was it for his NHL career.

Most of the 1986-87 season was spent with HV71, though, scoring three goals and 21 points in 35 games. Eloranta’s next three seasons were spent with Lugano of the Swiss league, scoring 23 goals and 92 points in 107 games.

In 1990-91, Eloranta returned to Finland, playing for his hometown team, then named Repias Lahti. There, he scored seven goals and 25 points in 44 games. The next four seasons were spent in Sweden with Rögle BK, scoring 19 goals and 67 points in 148 games, serving as their captain in 1993-94 and 1994-95.

His final full season of professional hockey came in 1995-96 with Lahti, scoring five goals and 30 points in 44 games. He played one game for the Lahti Pelicans in 1996-97 after the rebrand.

After his playing days, Eloranta coached five different seasons in Finland in broken-up stints, as well as a season in Switzerland. His most recent gig was in 2007-08. Eloranta represented Team Finland on numerous occasions in different tournaments, including the 1988 Winter Olympics, where they won the Silver Medal. The defenceman is also one of just nine players who were born on Feb. 29, a date that comes around once every four years.