For International Hockey Coverage

Sweden's top professional hockey league could have seen a big boost in talent this fall by potentially adding locked out NHL players, but has instead opted to not allow short term mercenary talent.

How have recent events changed the landscape of European professional hockey? Three years after the Champions Hockey League and the establishment of the KHL, we're really only now figuring it out.

The 2010-11 European hockey club season is over. Here's a brief summary of the winners of the top leagues across the continent.

The Kvalserien to Elitserien tournament is Sweden's exciting method of promotion and relegation, and is a format that should be used more often. This year's tournament has already produced a new Elitserien team: the Vaxjo Lakers, who will compete in Sweden's top league for the first time in their club's history.

The Swedish Elitserien Finals are set, with two of the top regular season teams making it through to the final. It's a clash of offense vs. defense, so see how the Skellefteå and Färejstad compare in this finals preview.

The 2011 European Hockey playoff season keeps rolling with the talented Salavat Yulaev Ufa winning at home to open their KHL Eastern Conference Final, while Lulea gets the bounces to go their way in a second straight OT win over Skelleftea. Plus, the OHL playoffs begin and one semifinal in Slovakia is going the full seven games.

Davos sweeps their way to the Swiss national final, while the Elitserien semifinals begin in Sweden. We've got that and more from around European hockey on Tuesday.

The Continental Cup winning Avangard Omsk has been eliminated from the Gagarin Cup playoffs in the KHL, while HIFK gets back into the Helsinki derby in Finland's SM-Liiga. These stories and more European hockey playoff action is part of our daily recap at Puck Worlds.

There was lots of action around the hockey world over the weekend, with the high priced talent of SKA St. Petersburg getting knocked out in Game 7 OT by Atlant Moscow Oblast headling the KHL playoff picture. The Canadian Hockey League wrapped up their regular season, and the Elitserien wrapped up their quarterfinals as well.

The Kanada-malje playoffs got underway in Finland, with the Helsinki derby showing some nastiness early as star forward Mikael Granlund was injured on a big hit. Read about that and all your playoff news outside of the NHL in the morning recap on Puck Worlds.