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WC: 2016 Team Finland Pt. II

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snipes said:
I wouldn't be surprised at all if you guys beat us. I'd say it's a 50/50 game. This is why it's so exciting, no one knows who will win. There's no favourite in this game.

You guys have forwards that can compete with our forward lines and any team at this tournament. I honestly have no idea who will win on Tuesday, I know that it will be a battle though. The Finns are looking really strong especially at forward.

You guys have also played very strong defensively giving up low shot totals each game. The real test will be how your D holds up on the forecheck. But we have our own question marks at D as well.

I can't wait :yo:.
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Defense is the part that's killing me, forward group has been able to cover for it so far, but these games have been weak.

Small pressure from a team like Hungary made that defense struggle at times, and Canada will roll 4 NHL lines with speed and skill.

I'm hoping Barkov line has a huge night, and that Jokinen woke up with his goal and starts to use his linemates better, if they are on fire we can have a small chance, other is that you play on monday so maybe we can surprise at the start of game.
 
BB88 said:
Defense is the part that's killing me, forward group has been able to cover for it so far, but these games have been weak.

Small pressure from a team like Hungary made that defense struggle at times, and Canada will roll 4 NHL lines with speed and skill.

I'm hoping Barkov line has a huge night, and that Jokinen woke up with his goal and starts to use his linemates better, if they are on fire we can have a small chance, other is that you play on monday so maybe we can surprise at the start of game.
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Yeah that's the one area that I have concerns about with the Finns, your D (to be fair, Canada has their own concerns with our D too).

If we have any chance at all of beating you, it will require getting pucks deep and putting relentless pressure on your D. We would have to roll 4 lines, wave after wave, with heavy attacking pressure on your D.

If we don't come out with an intensity and wave after wave focus, the Finns will crush us.

You guys should be giving Barkov heavy minutes, especially for defensive zone face-offs. He plays an NHL style game and is good defensively, he's also a beast on those board battles down low. Barkov plays a very Canadian style game, can we adopt him before we play you? :).
 
snipes said:
Yeah that's the one area that I have concerns about with the Finns, your D (to be fair, Canada has their own concerns with our D too).

If we have any chance at all of beating you, it will require getting pucks deep and putting relentless pressure on your D. We would have to roll 4 lines, wave after wave, with heavy attacking pressure on your D.

If we don't come out with an intensity and wave after wave focus, the Finns will crush us.

You guys should be giving Barkov heavy minutes, especially for defensive zone face-offs. He plays an NHL style game and is good defensively, he's also a beast on those board battles down low. Barkov plays a very Canadian style game, can we adopt him before we play you? :).
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You have to let us have 1 player that can keep up with team Canada :laugh:
How about we keep him but you get Finns passport so you can become a true fan of
Laine-Barkov-Pulju line in time :nod:

I'm looking at that defense with Ellis and can't believe it's a weakness, that guessed 3rd pairing would easily be our 1st pairing, we don't have a D-player that would make that top6 in this tourney.
I hope our defense gets to that level one day.
 
Lindell didn't look so good in the first 3-4 games, but has been much better as of late.

Overall he has been ok, but played better last year. Let's see how he does against Canada and in the medal round.
 
BB88 said:
You have to let us have 1 player that can keep up with team Canada :laugh:
How about we keep him but you get Finns passport so you can become a true fan of
Laine-Barkov-Pulju line in time :nod:

I'm looking at that defense with Ellis and can't believe it's a weakness, that guessed 3rd pairing would easily be our 1st pairing, we don't have a D-player that would make that top6 in this tourney.
I hope our defense gets to that level one day.
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You have lots of players who can keep up with us. Stop trying to be an underdog, you're not. You are a hockey power and only getting better. The future is very bright for Finnish hockey.

Your entire top 6 are excellent hockey players. I'm also very high on Aho and Rantanen. Why was Rantanen kept out of the lineup this long?

Yeah developing more high end D men is an area where the Finns need to focus on. There's zero questions about your forwards and goaltenders. I say this respectfully because I think highly of Finnish hockey and know you guys care about hockey as much as Canadians do.

Our D is alright at this tournament. Definitely not even close to the best we can offer. But these young kids can all skate very well. Ellis was a nice addition, but I think we could be in tough with Barkov and some of your high end forwards.
 
snipes said:
You have lots of players who can keep up with us. Stop trying to be an underdog, you're not. You are a hockey power and only getting better. The future is very bright for Finnish hockey.

Your entire top 6 are excellent hockey players. I'm also very high on Aho and Rantanen. Why was Rantanen kept out of the lineup this long?

Yeah developing more high end D men is an area where the Finns need to focus on. There's zero questions about your forwards and goaltenders. I say this respectfully because I think highly of Finnish hockey and know you guys care about hockey as much as Canadians do.

Our D is alright at this tournament. Definitely not even close to the best we can offer. But these young kids can all skate very well. Ellis was a nice addition, but I think we could be in tough with Barkov and some of your high end forwards.
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I think in this tourney, in this game we are underdogs against Canada, I'd say we have the 3rd best roster in this tourney, but no idea how far that will take us.
Golden age should be just starting for us, but it's not here just yet.


I have no idea why Jalonen didnt play Rantanen right away, his usage of Pulu was something else, didn't make any sense.
But now he is in the lineup and hopefully will stay there.
 
snipes said:
You have lots of players who can keep up with us. Stop trying to be an underdog, you're not. You are a hockey power and only getting better. The future is very bright for Finnish hockey.

Your entire top 6 are excellent hockey players. I'm also very high on Aho and Rantanen. Why was Rantanen kept out of the lineup this long?

Yeah developing more high end D men is an area where the Finns need to focus on. There's zero questions about your forwards and goaltenders. I say this respectfully because I think highly of Finnish hockey and know you guys care about hockey as much as Canadians do.

Our D is alright at this tournament. Definitely not even close to the best we can offer. But these young kids can all skate very well. Ellis was a nice addition, but I think we could be in tough with Barkov and some of your high end forwards.
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3-4 of best Finnish Dmen aren't even on the team. A guy like Lindell would be depth guy at best (which I like his game a lot). Finland is developing forwards AND Dmen now very nicely to catch up with their elite goaltending.
 
Thing that worries me the most can our dmen score in elimination games ? We have a great forward group and skilled players, but in elimination games teams will play well defensively, so usually that means you need contribution from your back end. Guys like Barkov, Granlund, JJ etc. will be able to draw the attention and set up a dman on the rush for example, then we have guys like Kukkonen, Ohtamaa, Jaakola, Salmela, Kivisto etc. blasting away :laugh:

I think it's pretty much inevitable that we will give up goals against the Canadas and Russias, and our strenght is on offense, so naturally we'll have to be able to score a bunch of goals. Lindell, Pokka and Hietanen will need to step up big time for us.

Btw i hope Saros plays from now on. Im not too optimistic he will, but to me he's the better goalie of the two. Koskinen is a big body but a lot of times he seems slow reading the play and can get beat quite easily with a good clean shot. I think he'll get burned against Canada.
 
M3ntalpr0 said:
Thing that worries me the most can our dmen score in elimination games ? We have a great forward group and skilled players, but in elimination games teams will play well defensively, so usually that means you need contribution from your back end. Guys like Barkov, Granlund, JJ etc. will be able to draw the attention and set up a dman on the rush for example, then we have guys like Kukkonen, Ohtamaa, Jaakola, Salmela, Kivisto etc. blasting away :laugh:

I think it's pretty much inevitable that we will give up goals against the Canadas and Russias, and our strenght is on offense, so naturally we'll have to be able to score a bunch of goals. Lindell, Pokka and Hietanen will need to step up big time for us.

Btw i hope Saros plays from now on. Im not too optimistic he will, but to me he's the better goalie of the two. Koskinen is a big body but a lot of times he seems slow reading the play and can get beat quite easily with a good clean shot. I think he'll get burned against Canada.
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Strenght is our team play, and we have potential to play the way we don`t get scored bunch of goals.
 
I would hate to think what our perennially over-"enthusiastic" fan base would say if would actually lose games... Something we have so far failed to do despite our awesome awfullness in this tournament.

We have succeeded with far worse teams in the past and now that we get a strong team for once, everyone is pissing and moaning when we don't win every match 16-0.
 
LOFIN said:
Nice to meet you Kari. Are you ****ing kidding me? I didn't see this match, but so far the lines have done anything but clicked together. Also the PP has been atrocious since the Germany game though again, I didn't see how well that fared today. 50% so I guess it will do.
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I don't know what clicking means to you, but to me it means being effective in both ends. This has been achieved by all 5-on-5 lines: they are all generating far more scoring chances than they are allowing. Of course much improvement happened in the last match, which you conveniently missed, so I don't exactly know what on what basis you have for arguing about the current situation since you haven't seen the latest game. Also that "atrocious" PP is leading the tournament in success rate and goals scored. Would like to know what is so much more important than scoring goals when judging a power-play.

Also, undefeated. Like it or not, countries like Germany(5-1) and Belarus(6-2) have given us a lot of trouble in past years, not to mention Slovakia(5-0). The results are what matters, and they are impressive.
 
Anssi Salmela's tournament is over due to a back injury. We will roll with 7D for the rest of the way.
 
Pulkkinen will be 13. forward from now on. Would not mind Pihlström-Rantanen-Pulkkinen and few shifts for Lajunen/Sallinen every now and then.
 
Apparently Koskinen will play against Canada... I would be more comfortable with Saros in net
 
Saros has good memories playing against Sweden so I would not be worried about losing to Canada with Koskinen in net. Finland can't afford risk injuries against Canada on tuesday.
 
What is the name of your goal song ? It's the best goal song in any IIHF world jr/WHC I've heard in last 5-10 years. I love hearing it especially after a Barky driven goal. Same song used at last World Jr's too if I'm not mistaken.
 
Some of my opinions.

First of all, it's a miracle Laine's scoring so well. The line isn't working 5 on 5 at all. I guess a part of that is because of Laine not being that great on the puck, but he is very good off the puck and even so I've just about never seen him getting good passes leading into a scoring chance. It happens extremely rarely in comparison to many other lines... That actually don't have anywhere near as good of a finisher as Laine in them. Surely Barkov and Jokinen should be able to set him up better?

Another thing, the PPs make no sense. Aho's spot makes zero sense, Koivu should be in the middle of the box if anything. Granlund is the playmaker of that PP as well, but with the removal of Pulkkinen that PP has no good shots. Jokinen is not a good playmaker and Barkov's wasted as Finland's best playmaker in the middle of the box. I can't believe they would waste Finland's best playmaker like that, even if he is good in that role as well. The PP doesn't play to Laine properly at all, he either gets passes in poor situations or the defensemen use their awful shots instead of passing good one timers to Laine in the situations asking for it. Laine actually has been getting set up terribly throughout the tournament even though he's been open so, so many times. How's this even possible?

I mean, Barkov did score 2+1 in the past game and that's good of course, but those scoring plays still were played away from Laine the entire time. Good thing they ended up being goals but this is still difficult to comprehend.

Then I'd like to add that the roles for the lines are incorrect. Barkov's the playmaker, Laine's the goalscorer. Someone like Komarov would make sense for the 3rd member of the line, not Jokinen. Now there's no one to go to the goal to block vision and compete for space... Except Barkov, our playmaker. How does that make sense? Koivu I guess can do that job and Granlund can take care of the playmaking well, but then what is Aho doing in that line? A second playmaker? It should be a shooter instead in my opinon. Aho hasn't had a good tournament and I feel like it's mostly because of him constantly playing incorrect roles.

I'm not even going to get into our scorers being wasted in the 4th line. Why can't the 3rd line be another scoring line and just leave the defending stuff to the 4th with Pyörälä, Pihlström and other defense specialists, for instance Lajunen? Even if these wouldn't be the finalized line ups, why hasn't the coaching staff even been testing these kinds of combinations instead of just sticking with the same line up for was it 4 matches or so even against extremely weak teams when those were the chances for experimenting? Now it's too late to try to fix the subpar roling.


Some suggestions:

Laine - Barkov - Komarov

Jokinen - Koivu - Granlund

Rantanen - Aho - Pulkkinen

Lajunen - Pyörälä - Pihlström

But their player choices just aren't perfect for forming a completely coherent line up. That 3rd line lacks physicality but I honestly have no clue what Rantanen and Pulkkinen are doing here if they aren't playing in that line. Komarov would be better but then Finland would lack the rebound / loose puck control and sight blocking required for their best shooter.
 
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snipes said:
Yeah they're tough. We have a long history with Russia in hockey, we love playing them. Sometimes they win, sometimes we win. We own them in best-on-best. While this tournament isn't best-on-best, I always want to play Russia for Gold in any hockey event (but playing Finland would be awesome at this event).

We don't get scared of the Russians, it's more of a challenge that brings out the best qualities of Canadian people. We don't back down from a fight. Ever.

The Finns are emerging into the superpower category with Canada and Russia soon. But first you guys need to win a best-on-best event before you get into that category. However, you've certainly earned lots of respect recently. I know Canadians think very highly of Finnish hockey, especially recently.

I don't think there are any two countries in the world that are as passionate about hockey right now than the Finns and Canadians are. We live and breathe hockey just like you do. Our winters are even colder than yours :).
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Your winters might be, but do you know about our summers?
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CanadianPantherFan said:
Thanks !

Outside the first 15-20 seconds solid cut !
What are they saying ? Main message ? Any reason the country is using this song for each tourney now?
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It's about hockey.

The part they play after goals is "Every time I shoot, every time I shoot, every time I shoot, in flames tomorrow, in flames today. Every time I tackle, every time I tackle, every time I tackle, the beast is loose." Slap shot specifically but that sounds lame in English.

Remade version of https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjjz9xOcsz0
 
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