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WJC: Biggest Disappointments of the Tournament

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BillyShoe1721

BillyShoe1721

Terriers
Mar 29, 2007
17,252
6
Philadelphia, PA
2. Kasperi Kapanen, Forward, Finland

The 22nd overall pick in 2014, Kapanen got a cup of coffee with the Penguins in preseason and was impressive in those four games as an 18 year old. Upon returning to KalPa (a team his father Sami owns the majority of), Kapanen posted an impressive 16 points in 19 games in Finland’s top league. That point production was leaps and bounds better than anyone in his age group.

Kapanen was supposed to be on the Finnish team that won gold in 2014, but was injured in selection camp before the tournament. As defending champions, the Finns would have a target on their back in 2015. If they were going to repeat, they would need a big performance from Kapanen, their premier forward.

Through all of pool play, Kapanen was held off the scoresheet entirely. He failed to generate the offense expected of him, and as a result, the Finnish team suffered. He managed to score one goal in Finland’s quarterfinal matchup against Sweden, but that ended up being his only point all tournament.
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http://thehockeywriters.com/the-5-biggest-chokes-of-the-wjc/
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The whole Team Finland where disappointments, also Sweden to not medal after dominating the early stages of the tourney are disappointments.
 
If I were a fan of the U.S. or Sweden, I would be quite disappointed. Not so much with Finland as they were a very young team.
 
Kapanen is my pick for most disappointing, hands down. Not sure Mirco Mueller was as dominating as I was expecting him to be, either.
 
Statsy said:
Kapanen is my pick for most disappointing, hands down. Not sure Mirco Mueller was as dominating as I was expecting him to be, either.
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Mueller logged heavy minutes and was not on for many goals against, he wasnt expected to dominate offensively as he is not that type of defensemen. The team was better when he was on the ice
 
As a Pens fan who went to Montreal for the tournament, Kapanen was hands down the most disappointed I have ever been over a single player's play. Sometimes players play good and just don't get points(Crosby last night for example) but he was just terrible. Flubbed a lot of passes sent his way and would fall down for no reason. He scored a beauty goal against Sweden but by then I was watching on TV so maybe I was just bad luck. Either way, it sucked.
 
The more disappointing thing for me about Kapanen wasn't even just the lack of production (though it was the end result), but often times he just looked so disinterested. He floated around the ice, didn't really engage where the puck was, and didn't really put much effort into getting the puck.

Sometimes the puck just doesn't go in the net for you. Sometimes the bounces are out of your control. But work ethic/drive is something you can control.
 
On the bright side, fillip forsberg 2? years ago looked about about as bad as KK, may have had a few more points though; and he's turned out to be pretty good.
 
Shwag33 said:
On the bright side, fillip forsberg 2? years ago looked about about as bad as KK, may have had a few more points though; and he's turned out to be pretty good.
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You mean when he was named best forward of the tournament? I don't recall Forsberg ever looking as bad as Kapanen did this tournament.
 
Shwag33 said:
On the bright side, fillip forsberg 2? years ago looked about about as bad as KK, may have had a few more points though; and he's turned out to be pretty good.
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Yeah, then Forsberg came back the next year and scored 12 points in 7 games en route to being named MVP of the tournament. That's a tall task for Kapanen, but he'll definitely have a better surrounding cast next year. Rantanen, Puljujarvi, and Hintz will all be a year older and better.
 
Kapanen had one impressive moment in the quarters. Besides that, he was invisible. Very disappointing.
 
Shwag33 said:
On the bright side, fillip forsberg 2? years ago looked about about as bad as KK, may have had a few more points though; and he's turned out to be pretty good.
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That must have been Forsberg's first year, when he was a 17 year old player in his draft year. Both following years he was captain of team Sweden, brought the team to the finals, and was elected into the all-star team (as well as being voted best forward and MVP of the tournament the second time).

Sweden's bronze medal game was a disappointment. Hard to be disappointed with the Russia game since Russia played so damn well. Kapanen was the player I was most disappointed with. I thought Vrana was going to be more dominating for the Czech team. Fiala disappointed me as well.
 
The only game I saw live was Sweden - Czech, and Vrana was an offensive force in that game. Two goals and multiple other chances generated, surprised to see he floundered for the rest of the tourny,
 
PensBandwagonerNo272 said:
Thought Jake Virtanen was a little more one dimensional than I expected.
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I don't know about one dimensional, but he just looked lost to me. Like if he didn't have the puck he was floating around looking for a pass. The tunnel vision described by scouts was definitely apparent. He has a year to work on that though ...
 
NEWFowler said:
He was definitely misused along side of McDavid, but when he was moved back to the third line, I thought he was as advertised.
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Once he, Crouse and Gauthier got together, he seemed to be less dump and had an idea as to what to do.

Virtanen didn't look very good imo.

For Montreal prospects, I thought Lehkonen and De La Rose were huge disappointments to their respective teams. Neither will be an offensive dynamo, but at this level and given their experience in it and how they're amongst the oldest players they should have done better.
 
1. Attendance Montreal specially
2. Finland&Finnish PP/PK
3. Czech
4. USA
5. Finnish individuals: Lehkonen/Kapanen/Mustonen/Saros/Jortikka etc
 
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