To think it was just under 6months ago when Luukas Lilja was still practicing his skating in his local ice-hockey rink back in Nokia, Finland - when he got a phone call. He answered with great hesitation, as it is not a tradition in Finland to answer calls you are not expecting - but Luukas was glad that he did, because it was a scout from Carolina. He had watched few of his games with his old team, Nokian Pyry, and was so damn impressed about this player's ability that he decided to reach out for him to sign with the Carolina Kraken in the SMJHL.

At first, Lilja was very curious about the whole situation so he decided to meet the scout in person at the disabled person's cafe in Nokia. When the situation was as clear as day for him, he said yes to their proposal. Not only did this change Lilja's career path out of the NHL and into the SHL, it did change his short-term plans of moving to his own place in Tampere, to moving to his own place in Carolina.