WC: 2016 Team Finland Pt. II

[FinPanda]

We didn't have any NHL defenders on our team and it showed the worst way on the final. Too slow passes.

 

[Male75FromFinland]

Most obvious weaknes in KJ gameplan is the inability to change gameplay during the game. He kept rolling same lines and in same order no matter what. It was obvious that some players didn’t play well and some did but still he did nothing. Rantanen was good in those few seconds he was in the rink. Third line was having a very bad day and still they kept playing even in the last few minutes.

And what about the last minutes? No time out until 8 secs left, pulled goalie away 45 secs before the end etc.

Second PP was bad from the start of the tournament. First moved Pulkkinen in front of the goal, then took him out entirely and but Koskiranta in who by the way was very bad in PP. There was no one to shoot the puck in that PP, but hey lets not use Pulkkinen because he didn’t score goals in the fourth line.

Rantanen and Pulkkinen must have pissed his beer or something.

Both power-plays had totally wrong playmakers, Granlund & Aho should have been making plays. There is also Barkov, but he is so amazing in a slot.

I know Granlund was also in playmaking role, but his spot is on other side.

 

[Stoat]

I wondered one thing about Finnish power play the whole tournament. Why on earth there was no players who shoot right on the Mikko Koivu pp unit? I mean, come on! At least KJ could've changed Lindell to Pokka.

- Stoat

 

[Male75FromFinland]

It was fun tournament to watch, with this and U20/U18 tournaments my desire to follow Finland has come back. Also it was important that referees did not win the tournament for Russia. I did not agree with few choices they made with building team and I am glad I was wrong.

Hope Marjamäki can find better who should play with who and change Power-plays completely.

Thank you team Finland:

Mikko Koskinen " I told you so "
Goaltending for me was question mark, but what is more important it was not for Koskinen. He was on a mission to show everybody that he can be winning goalie and short trip to NHL was not the way it should go with him. He was right choice and had near perfect tournament.

Juuse Saros " Bring me more "
He played the way that left only one thing on line, he needs more changes, bigger one

Niklas Backstrom " The perfect choice "
His tournament schedule was clear to him, no games. Still he was great veteran presence for team and would and could play if needed in any situation.

Juuso Hietanen " the first pass "
Had amazing defensive tournament, but in last game could not make that important first pass to start rush.

Topi Jaakola " over play "
Had almost successful tournament, but in important games did not always have patience to stay in front of the net.

Ville Pokka " number one defenseman "
Ville was great at playing defense and also made a lot of underrated plays with the puck, he should have been playing at the power play.

Esa Lindell " mixed feelings "
Played great positional hockey and has a lot of potential but..... he did make some stupid plays with the puck and he was too slow at the point on a power play. He sure has ability to get puck to the net from the point.

Atte Ohtamaa " defensive defenseman with upside "
His positioning at own end was great, he was also ready to take a hit to make a play. Good with the puck. Played perfect tournament.

Tommi Kivistö " mr. no mistakes "
Was great surprise. Defenseman is like referee, if you don`t remember what he did end of game he did not make mistakes, Tommi was that guy for the Finns.

Lasse Kukkonen " stay at home d "
His penalty killing with Ohtamaa was flawless, play of Kivistö helped a lot when Lasse got injured

Anssi Salmela " injured before the real games "
Anssi had good tournament that ended with injury, no mistakes and willingness to jump up on offense.

Aleksander Barkov " perfect center "
He continued where he did end in NHL with playing perfect hockey. He did everything right and was best defensive forward in tournament while making plays with the puck.

Jussi Jokinen " turn overs "
During regular season at NHL Jokinen was give away machine, not in playoffs. I was worrying which one Finland will get, well we got both. He was wrong choice as power play playmaker. Don´t get me wrong Jussi is one of the best two way players in a world. He is tremendous player, but still Aho would fit better with Laine and Barkov.

Patrik Laine " the best 2nd pick in NHL history "
I know he has to play Hall of fame career to be best 2nd pick, but he has the potential to do that. This child is 18 years old. Sure he made some amateur plays during the tournament but he is just 18 with no NHL experience. This guy is hungry for success, and I mean team success. He sometimes looks like Mario Lemieux when he handles the puck. He wants to win and sure has poise. Amazing shot and natural instincts at offense. Congratulations Winnipeg for having change to take franchise player.

Mikko Koivu " the captain "
Mikko is perfect captain for team Finland. Amazing two way hockey with a lot of leading by example.

Mikael Granlund " taking another gear "
Granlund has skill and at this tournament he was taking another step towards being superstar in NHL. Granlund was the best LW in tournament, and you could see how much he wanted to win.

Leo Komarov " right attitude "
I was so proud of Leo when I saw how he took silver medal of from him 2 seconds after he got it. That is example of new attitude Finns. I just hated the "Aravirta" hockey when Finland was playing for medal. Leaders like Komarov know that SUOMI should only play for gold, we are so good. Komarov was huge part against Russia, perfect role player and great leader.

Jarno Koskiranta " perfect 3rd center "
How good was he!!! Played great defensive hockey all tournament, was amazing at penalty killing and was strong on a puck.

Mika Pyörälä " poor man`s Jere Lehtinen "
I think some NHL team should get this guy, he is so amazing defensive forward. He played himself to World Cup.

Sebastian Aho " hockey IQ "
Congratulations Carolina Hurricanes for drafting one of the best players of draft at 26th. Aho was the best player of two last games, both of them!!! He has so smooth skating, he can see the ice sooooo well. As so young age his defensive play is flawless. This guy should have been playing with Barkov & Laine.

Tomi Sallinen " perfect without the puck "
First games I was thinking that Sallinen is a wrong choice, I was wrong. Against Russia he was important in own zone and did make simple right plays with puck.

Antti Pihlström " energy guy "
It was so funny that before tournament some people were thinking Antti is wrong choice. Antti will be on my team every time. He is so valuable role player for Finland in every tournament.

Mikko Rantanen " should have played more "
This guy is going to be in line with Barkov and Laine in 2-3 years. Wanted to see more from him, but he did not get the ice time.

Jani Lajunen " Barkov replaceman "
This guy did not play much, but his game is something that can get him regular bottom 6 role in future world champion tournaments.

Teemu Pulkkinen " did not do anything wrong "
They told Teemu that you will shoot he puck on power play and play as energy player on 4th line. He did both and then they did take him out of power play, and leave him with energy player role??? He did that then they take that also away....... Maybe just one goal against some bad team early in tournament would have changed everything???

It was fun to watch this team, in the end Canada was better. 3rd period of gold medal game I would wanted them to play with these 3 lines:

Laine - Barkov - Aho
Granlund - koivu - Komarov
Jokinen - Koskiranta - Rantanen

 

[Talisman]

i think that KJ make mistake that he left puljujärvi/Ramstedt/Lehkonen and Kristian kuusela( Finlands liiga best players out of roster). he should`ve left Sallinen/pyörälä out roster and replace them more offensive minded players??. like canada have no Checking/grinding lines!!. off course KJ id a good job and get silver

 

[Male75FromFinland]

i think that KJ make mistake that he left puljujärvi/Ramstedt/Lehkonen and Kristian kuusela( Finlands liiga best players out of roster). he should`ve left Sallinen/pyörälä out roster and replace them more offensive minded players??. like canada have no Checking/grinding lines!!. off course KJ id a good job and get silver

Pyörälä was one of the most important players of Finland.

 

[QnebO]

I hope we're now done with Hietanen. He doesn't bring assets to any team. I wonder how he tricks so many people with his play. It's solid but in the end of day, he can't play on high level against NHL players defensively and never brings anything offensively.

He doesn't have the 2011 gold. Despite being in the team many times, he only has two silvers counting the newest. He had chance to score in this 2016 final.. ****ing ****. And how many times he did not pass to Laine? ****ing puck hog. I'm signing in No-for-hietanen club for future tournaments.

 

[BB88]

We didn't have any NHL defenders on our team and it showed the worst way on the final. Too slow passes.

That's the biggest killer, and so many are missing that and saying you had the forwards, but
Watching the Bruins, and now this team has truly showed the value of skilled defense.

I hope we're now done with Hietanen. He doesn't bring assets to any team. I wonder how he tricks so many people with his play. It's solid but in the end of day, he can't play on high level against NHL players defensively and never brings anything offensively.

He doesn't have the 2011 gold. Despite being in the team many times, he only has two silvers counting the newest. He had chance to score in this 2016 final.. ****ing ****. And how many times he did not pass to Laine? ****ing puck hog. I'm signing in No-for-hietanen club for future tournaments.

Just saw another lineup suggestion today which had Hietanen on team Finland at the World Cup, please stop the madness
We have to be able to do better than that.

 

[Jopo]

Just saw another lineup suggestion today which had Hietanen on team Finland at the World Cup, please stop the madness
We have to be able to do better than that.

Maybe... hmm... maybe Team Finland should send whole team to summer course of figure skating, and plan culturally and historically relevant choreography for a new Team Haka, performed always before 1st period and occasionally also during technical timeouts for

A) For Waking up to starts of the games and get tempo
B) Improve 5 vs 5 Team play and lines' internal coordination, and team spirit
C) Help poor goalies whom have to hold whole Defense upon their shoulders, even then whole team tries dive on paths of puck
D) Improve entertaining, visual aspects of Finnish Hockey
E) Confuse opponent, and mask real intentions
F) Special Haka to be performed after 'winning' Silver again

Several different Hakas would allow higher variance in options of a Coach's toolbox, for example PP-Haka, PK-Haka, All-in-Haka, Ratman and Tiki'n'Leo-Haka etc., whom of course would be able to use their arsenal creatively in everchanging circumstances.

That would, however, require some minor paradigmatic changes to The Finnish System.

 

[Jopo]

Seriously.

How about inclusion of Assistant player-Coach to every NT, preferably as offensively oriented Defenseman of 3rd pair, or in role of 7th D.

Player on Ice, Coach on a bench during matches. FEL background and/or active FEL Career. Always some experience in International games, and always as a player. By default always 25-30 years old.

Part of a program for producing new future coaches. That role could be also circulated systematically.

As hazy and absurd it maybe sound, my point here is perspective to a game for coaching staffs, and long term production and cultivation of Coaches.

 

[Periwinkle]

We didn't have any NHL defenders on our team and it showed the worst way on the final. Too slow passes.

I agree the D men -once again- were a problem. I however don't know if the fault lies in the players themselves - making an easy pass for D zone exit shouldn't be that hard, or if it was about KJ's "controlled D zone exist" (whatever viivelähtö is in English) playing style, or both. It killed me that out D men were "gathering up the troops" behind the goal, only to get trouble with the aggressive forecheck of the Canadians, often in situations where initially there was no danger/plenty of time to get the attack going. That strategy doesn't really work against NA teams. Then when the D zone exit was succesful enough, the forwards were met with the 4 man welcoming committee at the neutral zone and all of our offense was reduced to dump-and-chase. I get starting with that strategy as it worked throughout the tournament, but was there any adjustment when this strategy clearly did not work? If there was, I didn't see it.

Regarding the future, I'm still slightly concerned that we seem to be producing small puckmovers rather than those big defensive/two-way studs...only Ristolainen really at this moment.

 

[QnebO]

Maybe... hmm... maybe Team Finland should send whole team to summer course of figure skating, and plan culturally and historically relevant choreography for a new Team Haka, performed always before 1st period and occasionally also during technical timeouts for

A) For Waking up to starts of the games and get tempo
B) Improve 5 vs 5 Team play and lines' internal coordination, and team spirit
C) Help poor goalies whom have to hold whole Defense upon their shoulders, even then whole team tries dive on paths of puck
D) Improve entertaining, visual aspects of Finnish Hockey
E) Confuse opponent, and mask real intentions
F) Special Haka to be performed after 'winning' Silver again

Several different Hakas would allow higher variance in options of a Coach's toolbox, for example PP-Haka, PK-Haka, All-in-Haka, Ratman and Tiki'n'Leo-Haka etc., whom of course would be able to use their arsenal creatively in everchanging circumstances.

That would, however, require some minor paradigmatic changes to The Finnish System.

You got absolutey no crediblity to play an ridiculing card in Hietanen discussion. I know it's not one of the no brainer subjects, as hietanen is defensively mistake free usually (untill Canada or other big strong team outplays him), and that's what makes it a good subject to discuss.

Seriously.

How about inclusion of Assistant player-Coach to every NT, preferably as offensively oriented Defenseman of 3rd pair, or in role of 7th D.

Player on Ice, Coach on a bench during matches. FEL background and/or active FEL Career. Always some experience in International games, and always as a player. By default always 25-30 years old.

Part of a program for producing new future coaches. That role could be also circulated systematically.

As hazy and absurd it maybe sound, my point here is perspective to a game for coaching staffs, and long term production and cultivation of Coaches.

Just wtf?

 

[QnebO]

That's the biggest killer, and so many are missing that and saying you had the forwards, but
Watching the Bruins, and now this team has truly showed the value of skilled defense.



Just saw another lineup suggestion today which had Hietanen on team Finland at the World Cup, please stop the madness
We have to be able to do better than that.

Yup. If we compare Lindell and hietanen, Lindel makes few mistakes in a tournament it seems, BUT he is guy who has potential to even outplay forwards of best opponents, when he is on his game. I'd rather take guy who actually brings few AA games than a no show who does the regullar series mistake free but without anything to so for, neither.

 

[Jopo]

Another semi-fancy idea.

Available and eligible members of U18, U20 and Men's Teams perform every year internal tournament, and test games (that are die-hard infight games) for determining which line-ups of an different age categories teams will form a pool of The core of The Lions' NT line-ups.

Max 50% of any Team can be composed of Players playing in NA. (tired and hesitant NHL-playoff dropouts are excluded without any speculations)

Point: ensure that talented new generation players (and lines with extra-ordinary chemistry) has always opportunities to get through to NT level, for keeping The system in a flow state.

 

[Michael Hockey]

Only three guys truly brought their A-game to the final (Koskinen, Granlund and Aho) and it showed by team Canada easily dominating us.

Especially the Barkov line was a big disappointment for me and one can`t but wonder if Barkov was still recovering from his flu.

 

[Male75FromFinland]

I hope we're now done with Hietanen. He doesn't bring assets to any team. I wonder how he tricks so many people with his play. It's solid but in the end of day, he can't play on high level against NHL players defensively and never brings anything offensively.

He doesn't have the 2011 gold. Despite being in the team many times, he only has two silvers counting the newest. He had chance to score in this 2016 final.. ****ing ****. And how many times he did not pass to Laine? ****ing puck hog. I'm signing in No-for-hietanen club for future tournaments.

He had better defensive tournament than before but his role was to start play and quarter back on power play. Last game he did not start rushes and on power play he should have made Laine lot more scoring changes, but he did not.

Sad but true, he deserved to be on team because we have so few choices

 

[Ippenator]

Only three guys truly brought their A-game to the final (Koskinen, Granlund and Aho) and it showed by team Canada easily dominating us.

Especially the Barkov line was a big disappointment for me and one can`t but wonder if Barkov was still recovering from his flu.

Yes Barkov was in fact the worst Finnish player in the final. Very disappointing indeed. For sure he was bothered with something, but flue it definitely wasn't. His father gave some hints that it was about something else, but wasn't really clear what it was.

To me Barkov is in general a bit overestimated player. I am unfortunately so far seeing the Ovechkin-syndrome in him. I mean freezing at the most important moments and games. He was pretty meh in NHL playoffs and I haven't seen him show up so far in any bigger games. I really hope I am wrong, but so far he strikes me as very much of a choker kind of player.

He did show some seriously amazing puck handling and great defensive play in this years WHC, but on the other hand he was really pretty bad in taking faceoffs and his skating didn't really look good at all. He looks in fact pretty slow and clumsy skater even nowadays. He is also not really that much of a playmaker. Or at least Finland had much better and cleverer passers in Granlund and Aho. Either of them should have been playing in the same line with Barkov and Laine, as unfortunately Barkov and Jokinen were not that impressive with feeding Laine.

Barkov is of course still so young that he can develop a lot. But for me he is not even in the top 20 list of NHL centers at the moment. Of course as a Finn I sure do very much hope he will one day be even a top 10 center.

 

[QnebO]

Yes Barkov was in fact the worst Finnish player in the final. Very disappointing indeed. For sure he was bothered with something, but flue it definitely wasn't. His father gave some hints that it was about something else, but wasn't really clear what it was.

To me Barkov is in general a bit overestimated player. I am unfortunately so far seeing the Ovechkin-syndrome in him. I mean freezing at the most important moments and games. He was pretty meh in NHL playoffs and I haven't seen him show up so far in any bigger games. I really hope I am wrong, but so far he strikes me as very much of a choker kind of player.

He did show some seriously amazing puck handling and great defensive play in this years WHC, but on the other hand he was really pretty bad in taking faceoffs and his skating didn't really look good at all. He looks in fact pretty slow and clumsy skater even nowadays. He is also not really that much of a playmaker. Or at least Finland had much better and cleverer passers in Granlund and Aho. Either of them should have been playing in the same line with Barkov and Laine, as unfortunately Barkov and Jokinen were not that impressive with feeding Laine.

Barkov is of course still so young that he can develop a lot. But for me he is not even in the top 20 list of NHL centers at the moment. Of course as a Finn I sure do very much hope he will one day be even a top 10 center.

Partly right, but his corner play and strenght+puck protection were impressive, as well as defensive game. Offensively, we didin't get much going in the final as a team neither, not just barkov. We just defended all the time without the puck.

Best players of that game: Koskinen, Granlund, Rantanen (limited ice time).

I don't believe I say this but wish we had Kukkonen in the final. He can give the easy pass faster than most of our D