The 2020–21 season was the thirty-eighth season of the , Finland's elite women's ice hockey league, since the league's creation in 1982. The season began, as scheduled, on 5 September 2020, making the Naisten Liiga the first women's national ice hockey league in Europe and, quite likely, in the world to return to play for the 2020–21 season.
League business
Number of teams
When the 2019–20 Naisten Liiga season was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the league qualification series () had not been completed. At the time of cancellation, Lukko Naiset had amassed an unreachable points advantage and secured their place in the Naisten Liiga and APV Naiset had been mathematically relegated to the Naisten Mestis but it was still possible for either RoKi Naiset or TPS Naiset to qualify. Recognizing that it would be unfair to relegate either RoKi or TPS, the Finnish Ice Hockey Association announced that both teams would participate in the 2020–21 Naisten Liiga season, increasing the number of teams in the preliminary round from ten to eleven.
League placement rankings
In an effort to account for expected cancellations of some matches due to COVID-19 safety protocols, the Finnish Ice Hockey Association announced league rankings would be determined by the average points per game of each team rather than the absolute point total traditionally used. For example, a team with two wins in two games played (6 points total, average 3.0) ranks higher in the league table than a team with four wins, one overtime loss, and one regulation loss (13 points total, average 2.17).
Coaching changes
Teams
Preliminary series
The addition of another team necessitated slight modification of the season format introduced for the 2019–20 season. With eleven participating teams, the twenty-game preliminary series () was played strictly as a double round-robin without the addition of the two extra Opening Weekend Tournament games typically needed. The preliminaries were scheduled to be played during 5 September to 13 December 2020.
The season began as scheduled on 5 September 2020, making the Naisten Liiga the first women's national ice hockey league in Europe – and, quite possibly, in the world – to return to play for the 2020–21 season. The first game of the season saw Ilves Tampere beat TPS Turku 4–3 in overtime at Tesoman jäähalli.
On 1 December 2020, an emergency meeting of the Finnish Ice Hockey Association was held in response to a significant rise in cases and hospitalizations related to the COVID-19 pandemic in Finland during the preceding weeks. It was ultimately determined that all leagues under the Association's administration would suspend play from 2 to 31 December 2020, including the Naisten Liiga. The Naisten Liiga was expected to begin the regular season and lower division series in January, as outlined in the original season schedule, though the Finnish Ice Hockey Association expressed a desire to stage the games postponed during the period of suspended activity when play resumed.
Later in December, it was decided that Naisten Liiga teams would not attempt to play the games missed during the pause and would instead proceed directly to the regular season. With this determination, 29 November 2020 retroactively became the last day of the preliminary series, as it was the last day in which Naisten Liiga games were contested before the suspension.
Standings
Kiekko-Espoo and KalPa, the two teams from the cancelled 2020 Aurora Borealis Cup final, continued to dominate the league in the preliminaries, ranking first and second at the conclusion of the series. Less expected were the third and fourth ranked teams, HIFK and TPS, which had both played in the lower division during the previous season and TPS had very nearly been eliminated in the 2020 qualifiers. Both teams were bolstered in the 2020–21 season by an influx of international talent.
Kiekko-Espoo were the regular season champions for the third consecutive season.
Official ranking
Statistics
Scoring leaders
The following players led the league in points at the conclusion of the preliminaries on 29 November 2020.
Leading goaltenders
The following goaltenders lead the league in save percentage at the conclusion of the preliminaries on 29 November 2020, while starting at least one third of matches.
Regular season
The ten-game Naisten Liiga regular season, also called the upper division series (), is played by the six top-ranked teams from the preliminary series.