I would not. Russia’s weakness, centers, is better than Finland’s weakness, the whole defense.
Finland basically doesn’t have more than one guy who can play an NHL PP on that backend and probably only one real first pairing defenseman.
Miro is great, but let’s not make him into something he’s not. He’s not the best defenseman ever. The reason the defense needs him so much is because he’s the only good defenseman.
Here's the thing though, you don't really need more than one PP quarterback if he is healthy. And unlike in the 4 Nations, in the Olympics you can pick someone like Sami Vatanen, Mikko Lehtonen or Atro Leppänen to also run a PP. Your last sentence is questionable: While players like Mikkola, Lindell and Määttä can't really run a PP, they are solid defensively and they are definitely
good defensemen. Not
great or
star players, but definitely
good. I have no idea how Mikkola and Lindell still fly so under the radar with so many eyes on Florida and Dallas being Stanley Cup favourites (Well, somehow an even better Forsling still gets that too). We wouldn't have beaten Sweden in the 4 Nations if Heiskanen was
all we had.
Sergachev, Provorov, Gavrikov etc. are certainly very good, but you are acting like the rest of Finland's D would be pylons compared to them. The center group of Barkov, Aho, Hintz, Lundell and Granlund over an aging Malkin and co. is just as big of a difference, if not more. Who does Russia have at center, I am genuinely curious if I'm missing someone: Malkin and Namestnikov from the NHL? Buchnevich with his faceoff win-% of 37 seems like a bad idea at center. Kuznetsov, Shipachyov, Demidov, Shabanov from the KHL? There's lots of talent there, but... yeah.
The difference between Finland's and Russia's centers makes up for the difference between Russia's and Finland's defense, especially considering Heiskanen clears all Russian defensemen. Russia's wingers are scary talented though.
For Finland Russia is still the clear pick IMO, the historical results are great and the present match up more favourable than the other options. Allthough none of these are obviously easy at all.