Ristolainen's club team status is actually not related to whether he would have been good enough to make this team or not, it was to determine whether he was worthy of a direct spot or not. Seems like we have two schools. One thinks yes, because "ZOMG +20min NHL d-man 4 surah!" and the other sees things as follows - "He's a rookie d-man in a basement organization still cultivating its players. So no, additional showings from the camp are required". And those he didn't sadly deliver - or did, but was not as good as the guys now selected, or seemed like a misplaced cog in Jalonen's game plan.
If RR expected a sure spot, he was wrong - as were most of those who made that presumption. And this time round, Jalonen did not deem his try-out showings good enough. We'll have to re-evaluate his status next spring if he's available.
Now I'm not sure if we are even watching the same games to be honest. Mäntylä nearly cost us the lead in today's game when letting the opposition forward coast past through him ~10minutes left of the game. Then, when it was already too late he sort of wiped the guy's balance with a stick and I'm not sure how that wasn't called. We got really lucky. For the games before, it's been the same. The guy doesn't have enough level for the world championships and we've been having easy countries this far (apart from USA which kind of sets the bar vs other top countries). It will only get harder from now on so who knows how many goals we're going to be handing out due to Mäntylä's unability to handle defensive duties.
Here's a newsflash: It's not a game of what ifs. As long as Mäntylä doesn't cost us games, he clears the bar. Not by a great margin perhaps, but does so regardless. There may be a defensive lapse or two, but if you start picking his, you need to pick the ones made by the rest as well. And that's such a quagmire that we'll do well if we only count those that actually end up in the GAA column - as people honoring objective practices should do. So that's "if" number one in the wind.
And the second one goes as follows - we only have a supposition that Ristolainen would have been better than the designated patsy. However, there's no way to know for sure. So picking out a player and comparing his goings against the imaginary goings of another player in the same situation is not exactly fair. You're playing a fantasy against reality, and only stoners get a pass on that practice.
So even if Mäntylä looks like a failure to you, it's a huge logical misstep to argue that Ristolainen would have been better, because you really don't have anything better than your own gut feeling to back it up. For that to be possible, they both should have made this squad so we can compare 'em head-to-head. Sadly, that isn't the case, so all we have is Mäntylä being Mäntylä, and we've won most of our games with him in the lineup and zat's it. We shall see how Mäntylä fares when tougher countries start rolling along, but since precognition is not a thing known to the physics of this reality, we'll have to wait and see that far before we make the final call on him.
Simply put, we're not (or no intelligent person should be, at least) valuing Mäntylä against the imaginary showings of Ristolainen, we're valuing Mäntylä for his contribution to the overall team effort, and while he's certainly not our most depended-upon player, thus far he's cleared the bar. To claim otherwise is intellectual dishonesty.
If you look into the past and can say with a clear conscience that the 'pro coaches' haven't made bad selections before then that's fair enough. People rightfully have critised some of the rosters for as long as I can remember watching world championships, but there's nothing wrong having blind faith either. There's also the bias factor of a coach picking a player he has history with rather than a player who's had more success & ability given the seasonal achievement. That's the usual story, not sure if that applies in the current situation.
I'm fully aware of these practices and have actually been occasionally calling some coaches
*cough*Erkka*cough* out because of it - but the very thing is, Jalonen has actually shown NO display of such behavior, or at the very least, notably less than what warrants the usual suspicion.
He gives a kid a fair chance if he thinks he's deserved it (mind you, he could have easily kept Lindell out on sheltered minutes all tournament long or play Engren instead of Saros tonight), stays on top of the game, sees who's hot (like Kemppainen) and gives them more minutes while cutting down or diminishing the overall role of those who are not - even if they're supposed to be a designated heavy hitter (like Kontiola).
ONLY questionable roster move Jalonen has done so far is cutting Ristolainen. When one pulls the noggin out of the smelly place and takes a gander around, one will hopefully notice that it's a gross outlier against every other call he's got perfectly right. Therefore it doesn't seem so outlandish to think that maybe he didn't get this one all that wrong either.
Of course, if the widest perspective one's ever had in life has been provided by the peephole drilled to the wall of the girls' locker room, it might be difficult to figure out that there are things outside our personal views as well. The fact that we don't know what the supposed good reason for cutting Ristolainen was, doesn't mean there isn't one. And given how Jalonen appears to be pretty far from a stereotypical coach stuck in his age-old ways, the odds are said reason's there alright.
KJ saw him playing in preliminary games, but he also saw him in trainings and other situations on and off ice. What we fans see is just the tip of the iceberg. It's really stupid to think that KJ had made the decision based on same information that a fan has. 
. I disagree with that tho.
