However your wrong about RR being a rookie. He had 36 NHL games under his belt prior to 2015-2016 which means he isn't Calder eligible.
"Rookie" is a general term that can be used about any player who's still relatively young and inexperienced (as is another term, "kid", which you also picked on earlier) - Ristolainen is no cagehead, but neither is he a multiple-season vet, so it was an entirely valid expression to use here, since we were not discussing his Calder eligibility.
Mäntylä already made a good case for himself in the USA game so I think "so long as" isn't quite the right phrase for this. Also as I stated before that game was the only one so far we have played against a quality country so he's weaknesses haven't had a chance to exactly blossom afterwards, but we will get a first hand opportunity to witness some more in the upcoming days. An old saying "it only takes one bad apple to spoil the bunch" might just apply here. Of course I'm praying to be wrong.
Based on the USA game, we should call most of the squad a failure. And if we really start picking on singular lapses as examples of a player's suckiness, there are plenty more "failures" out there than Mäntylä (like Ohtamaa and Jaakola) but I don't see anybody picking on 'em. And the guy who made that mistake leading to Bliznak's breakaway in the last game?
Barkov. Is he a "failure" now too?
Mäntylä's had a few moments he could have handled better, but so do many other players in this squad. Overall his play is not a gross outlier against the rest of the general performance. Which means he's pretty much performed on the same level as the other guys in a similar role, and that leads to a passing mark. Thus far. It goes without saying that the true test still lies ahead.
To call Mäntylä a failure only really tells us that the one making the claim is highly prejudiced and is therefore simply looking for any ammunition to use against him - while there are plenty other players in the squad who provide chances for similar kind of potshots. Yet we see none taken against them. It's Mäntylä who's become the designated patsy yet the reasons for ending up in such position generally don't hold water when placed under intellectual scrutiny. He has, in other words, become a victim of collective myopia. When enough people call his play bad thanks to an existing prejudice, more people focus on the bad aspects of his play, ignoring all the things he does right (and there are quite some). Combine that with the need of a target for venting the disappointment over the Risto cut, and that creates a chain reaction that feeds on itself. Other famous sufferers include Aki Berg back in the day, and more recently Lasse Kukkonen, though some of that is starting wear off of him.
Of course, this could be avoided if some common sense was applied. Players with such a prominent case of supposed "badness" don't make WHC squads 5+ times under various coaches if they're really are as bad as people paint them to be. Yes, they may be prone to defensive lapses every once in a while, but most likely they make up for it for doing a ton of little things right. Pro coaches pay attention to those, an untrained eye may not.
Even when these selections are made, coach is going with his gut feeling. This seems to apply especially when it comes to leaving RR out, since Finland had no other defender who had as many games in the National League. Basicly leaving him out is actually something that runs against going with the more logical option. Now your own gut is telling you this was a mistake and yet you argue for the sake of arguing, which I find extremely entertaining.
Here we go again. I wouldn't have picked RR on a gut feeling. I would've picked him based on what I saw, using the information available to me displayed via a TV screen and web streams.
However, there is plenty of intel NOT available to me that is readily available to Jalonen. Like how Ristolainen fares in practice, how he behaves in the locker room, what are his own aspirations if he makes this team and how do they fit against the general game plan Jalonen has in mind.
If I knew all that stuff and still would've agreed that RR should have made the squad, then I could say that Jalonen made a mistake. But I don't, so all I can say is
maybe he did a mistake, maybe he didn't. And with the way things are right now, I'm starting to think that maybe he didn't after all. I generally don't just go with my gut if I can use the information available, and while sceptical before the games, right now said information suggests that Jalonen had better information than me - so I really can't fault him for his choices.
And also, if Jalonen just overlooks all those things and simply takes a superficial gander at Ristolainen's NHL game log, he's NOT doing his job properly. What you're really doing here is that you're demanding Jalonen makes his picks based on what YOU (and to some extent, people in those Internet polls) know, instead of what he knows.
The reason I'm arguing is because I don't see this case so clear cut. While a case can be made for the inclusion of Ristolainen, it's also somewhat narrow-minded to call his exclusion a mistake. It's one of those things that can't be simply marked black or white, but falls somewhere within the grey area. And currently it's starting to look like Jalonen's standing somewhere in the lighter shade of it, as the team as a whole (including everybody's favorite chew toy Mäntylä) plays pretty much the way he's asking it to play - and then some.
To sum it up, this whole debate over both Ristolainen getting cut being wrong and Mäntylä being supposedly bad is because most people can't think outside their personal perspective. They assume that all they see is all there is.
The reason why we aren't seeing any bias if you compare to Jalonen for Erkka's era is mostly due to the fact this is Kari's first year as the head coach. While Westerlund had reign for 7-8 years. There's not enough sample size to draw conclusions wether Kari is biased towards players or not. I'm willing to give him a pass there. However I'm not actually sure if I agree wether RR was the only guy with question marks regarding of getting a pass or being passed out. Pesonen, Immonen, Aaltonen all had somewhat mediocore seasons. Pesonen wasn't up to KHL challenge and got transferred to SEL where he was actually able to show up on the score sheets (but the leagues are on a different level). Aaltonen hasn't impressed in the WC and the goal from the last game doesn't really change that fact. Also not sure if my memory serves me here, but didn't he get benched in Jokerit for not showing up? Thenagain, would there have been better options? Not really sure. Pulkkinen should've been in the squad but I'm not seeing him either (could be that Detroit didn't let him go).
Pulkkinen is in the AHL playoffs and running deep, so that's all we need to talk about him. About there being better players available, well, Jalonen cut Salminen early and there was some talk about Palola, but since they play on the same level as Aaltonen and Pesonen and you just questioned their club team achievements, I guess we can't really bring 'em up either.
There's nothing unusual about players who have shown their worth in the past passing the selection easier than newcomers. However, Jalonen's treatment of guys like Lindell and Jokipakka (and Saros, because he still could have picked more seasoned not to mention familiar Engren to man the net) tell us that he wasn't stacking the deck sky high against them. Actually, based on their treatment it appears to be have been relatively low, so an NHL stud you figure Ristolainen is should have cleared it with no great difficulty.
Yet he didn't - reasons known to Jalonen and the rest of his management team alone. But the writing's on the wall, and it pretty clearly states us it wasn't prejudice against the player type Ristolainen represents. So whatever the reason that ended up being RR's demise, it must have been better than that. Save for perhaps Rasse peeing in Jalonen's morning cereal or getting busy with his daughter.
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