Kristian Kuusela is a Finnish former professional ice hockey right wing. Kuusela announced his retirement on 27 April 2023 after winning the Liiga championship with Tappara. Kuusela played a total of 1107 regular season games with 738 points. During his Liiga career Kuusela represented Ässät, Kärpät, Blues and Tappara. Foreign clubs Kuusela reprecented were MODO Hockey from Sweden and Amur Khabarovsk from Russia.

The SM-liiga, colloquially called the Finnish Elite League in English or FM-ligan in Swedish, is the top professional ice hockey league in Finland. It was created in 1975 to replace the SM-sarja, which was fundamentally an amateur league. The SM-liiga is not directly overseen by the Finnish Ice Hockey Association, but the league and association have an agreement of cooperation. SM is a common abbreviation for Suomen mestaruus, "Finnish championship".