Jesse Joensuu Joins Islanders' Euro-Bound Lockout Corps

When we talked of Lubomir Visnovsky and Mark Streit's plans to play in Europe during the NHL lockout, reader thoughts soon turned to the flábuse, Jesse Joensuu, who signed a deal with the Islanders that included a Europe out clause this summer to take another crack at making an NHL lineup.

Sure enough, HockeySverige reports Joensuu has joined the Finnish league's Ässät, which has more umlauts than you can handle. Here is the club's official announcement, with a pretty sweet photo of Joensuu in his early Ässät days.

Ässät is the club Joensuu grew up with -- all the way back to U-16 juniors -- so it's at least a nice story that he gets to spend some time back with them while awaiting the NHL's ritual circus act to play out.

Track more NHL defections, er transfers, er escapes from the lockout at Elite Prospects' excellent lockout page. And marvel, won't you, at the stupidity that it has all come to this.