GDT: Quarterfinal • Finland vs. Canada • Part IV

[Kelly]

Virtanen, even if you're thinking it, you probably shouldn't say it in the media

When will this kid learn to keep his mouth shut..

 

[Macbanan]

Coaching junior hockey takes more active coaching, the players aren't Toews, Lundqvist or Jagr. They don't have the same experience to fall back on when parts of the game starts to fall apart. Kids are a lot more easily rattled.

Makes no sense not replacing a goalie that's underperforming. I mean jeez, even world class goalies have bad games and get pulled. The finnish side acted and the canadian did not. Same with skaters.

Sure Virtanen was STUPID this game but he's 19 and playing under enormous pressure. Coach got to act...

 

[leaflover]

I'm not going to rag on Marner because for the most part he had a decent tournament.

Problem is I can't think of one player who had a solid tournament consistently. konecny was good most games but didn't really produce, the point producers were up and down with their play and pretty much all the vets/returnees sucked.

Just a poorly constructed team from players to coaches. I know many people have their team prospect agenda to push but all and all this team has to be one of the worst assemble junior efforts HC has made.

Exactly how I feel. Its really strange that not 1 player was consistently good. Not sure I can remember another such case.
A few guys that have received little fanfare but should have are.......

Beauvillier
Chartier
Stephens
Dermott
Chabot
All the above played their limited roles well and I believe all are eligible next year. They'll be ready for greater roles and have both a score to settle and experience to draw from.

 

[dmacgreg37]

Holding a player's stick and then slashing another makes the ref biased? Virtanen played with a lot of stupidity this game.

Not defending what he said, was dumb, as were his penalties. That said, there were two times earlier in the game where Canadians had their sticks slashed out of their hands (Point and Virtanen) and nothing was called. The one on Virtanen in the offensive corner was obvious and directly in front of the ref, but nothing called.

Agreeing with your point about slashing a stick being an obvious penalty, but needs to be called consistently.

 

[Fat Doctor]

The game could've easily gone either way. The big turning point in my opinion was when Canada scored to make it 3-2 and Finland made the goalie change. Canada peppered the new goalie with 10 or 11 straight shots. Instead of it being 4 or 5-2, Finland came back and took the lead by the end of the 2nd. That was a smart move by the Finnish coach and Lowry showed time and time again the inability to keep up with the oppositions coaches in this tournament. Konecny was sitting on the bench game after game despite playing great, I didn't think Barzal played enough either as the tournament went on. He constantly changed his lines at the first moment of poor play, and overused Hicketts until finally realizing in this game that a guy like Sanheim can be of great value, especially on the PP.

Yeah, but you can also argue that Vehviläinen should never had started the game, ask anyone in Finland. Kähkönen is and has always been a better goalie and I have know idea why Vehviläinen was "given" the number one spot in the tournament.

It's always weird to see Canadians behaving so badly as they do after losing a hockey game You folks are usually so nice.

 

[Bob Clarke Fan Club]

Canada's lack of composure cost them in the end. It wasn't biased officiating or lack of effort. Finland had kids all over the ice in cages and under much more pressure and they finished like a good team finishes. There is no attempt at a pun whatsoever there.

 

[NeverForget06]

Yep - the thing is, they shouldn't have nearly this much pressure forced on them.

If people/media treated the tournament for what it is - a fun series of some of the most exciting hockey you'd see all year it would be fine. Except we treat it as "Gold or Bust" and talk of "failure" when that doesn't happen.

Fair. It is a ton of pressure. But if you asked those kids if they would rather have less attention on them what do you really think they would say? There is a pride in wearing the Canadian uniform and it comes with certain expectations. This tournament is the highlight of many of these players' hockey careers. Not all of them will go on to the NHL. I doubt any of them would want it to be different.

 

[TheLeastOfTheBunch]

I'm not going to rag on Marner because for the most part he had a decent tournament.

Problem is I can't think of one player who had a solid tournament consistently. konecny was good most games but didn't really produce, the point producers were up and down with their play and pretty much all the vets/returnees sucked.

Just a poorly constructed team from players to coaches. I know many people have their team prospect agenda to push but all and all this team has to be one of the worst assemble junior efforts HC has made.

Agreed. Not sure if it's going to be different next year either (Marner and Strome are likely making the NHL next year)

 

[Maplebeasts]

Strome Marner Barzal/Konecny three best players of the tournament imo. Chabot was our best defenseman.

 

[Fonzerelli]

Canada's most glaring error in today's loss was failing to pull our coach after the 1st period. If only somebody with some cohones was behind the bench, and could have pulled Leakwood after 1st goal, and sat Vitanen for last 2 periods..

100% bang on! Those coaches should all be on the HockeyCanada blacklist. Add the scouting staff while they're at it.

 

[Fonzerelli]

Strome Marner Barzal/Konecny three best players of the tournament imo. Chabot was our best defenseman.

If you say so. Ontario?

 

[McAsuno]

Not defending what he said, was dumb, as were his penalties. That said, there were two times earlier in the game where Canadians had their sticks slashed out of their hands (Point and Virtanen) and nothing was called. The one on Virtanen in the offensive corner was obvious and directly in front of the ref, but nothing called.

Agreeing with your point about slashing a stick being an obvious penalty, but needs to be called consistently.

IIHF officiating has always been this way. Even the penalties of punching the opposition should have been known to the Canadian players that anything literally goes to the penalty box. Just a bad Canadian team this year that lacked discipline while making the annual mistake of not icing their best available players in this tournament.

 

[Fantomas]

Listened to the Lowry interview, the Hicketts interview, the Point interview, the Marner interview and the Strome interview post-game.

Showing their immaturity, Strome whined about officiating and Marner referenced it. (No coincidence both took dumb penalties during the game)

Lowry, Hicketts and Point showed more class, but through the 5 interviews, not one of them credited the Fins with playing well or congratulated the Fins on playing well.

Come on boys, show some class!

Immature team. Appropriate results.

 

[Fonzerelli]

Agreed. Not sure if it's going to be different next year either (Marner and Strome are likely making the NHL next year)

Marner WILL NOT be in the NHL next year

 

[NyQuil]

What's frustrating about Virtanen is that he's one of the few guys (only guy?) with real NHL experience.

He should be the most professional guy on the team.

 

[jaloviina]

Finland was better so what is the big deal. it was hard fought game by both teams. and the better one won. congrats to both teams. Finland doesnt have the normal team play they normally have. Jinx

 

[stavs*]

I'm sorry what? He was the only reason we were in this game. If defending himself is stupid than what do you call tossing the puck to nobody out of the zone like Strome did. We were set up with a man advantage in the ****ing offensive zone and Strome just lopped it out like he was a Finn. Forget about the fact it should of been 5 for the hit on Strome earlier, the team sucked so much that it put us in a place of needing Marner to save us, which the kid nearly did when he split their D on the PK and just about put it in.
/QUOTE]

He did very well. Very noticeable for sure. But that stupid penalty when the game was on the line...he pissed it away because he couldn't keep his cool.



Yup, and without the fans...there is no money.

He pissed away a PP opportunity. That in no way, shape or form is equivalent and as bad as putting your team down for 6 minutes combinded on the PK with 10 minutes left thanks to Virtanen and Hicketts. Sure it was stupid,but it's not even close to being as bad. I can forgive Hicketts, but Virtanen should be the only culprit in our loss. I'm actually a little amazed that the player of the game is being called out for pissing the game away lmao.

 

[BWDude]

I didn't like the play of Hickets and Point in this tournament, two returnees. They were jokes as leaders of this team in my opinion.

Our top forwards didn't produce enough offense. Although Strome and Marner played alright, they did nothing compared to Domi, Duclair and Reinhart last year.

Lowry wasn't that great of a coach. Konecny was one of our best forwards in this tourney and he was stuck on the 4th line. I think our top-6 should have been any combination of Crouse-Marner-Konecny-Strome-Gauthier-Barzal.

The defense lacked a true #1. Hickets and Chabot couldn't cut it as a top pairing. Sanheim and Dermott didn't bring as much offense as I thought they would. Hickey and Fleury made too many costly mistakes. McKeown was meh. Juulsen, Roy or Lauzon could have done better than some of these guys.

Also, in goal, Blackwood was very subpar. For a guy who was gift-wrapped the starting position after not having played in 3 weeks, he really didn't seem to be all that great of a tender.

The Finns deserve the win. Their top line was awesome and they played great despite many defensive turnovers and weak goaltending early on. Their depth proved too great for Canada, which is saying a lot when you compared both countries' population and registered players. When you have Rantanen and Kapanen (two 1st rounders) as ''depth'' forwards, you know your offense is great.

100% agreed on the depth. You shouldn't really compare Strome and Marner to the Domi, Reinhart, Duclair line however. That line was all 19 year olds some being returnees. The more fair comparison is to the McDavid (he was even a returnee) line as they were mostly 18 year olds- which speaks to the depth of the team we had, Not being the only ones relied on for offense.

 

[Kelly]

Marner WILL NOT be in the NHL next year

Not sure how you can say that for certain.

He's too good for the OHL, but not strong enough for the NHL. Wouldn't surprise me to see him get the Drouin treatment and play in a limited role in the NHL.

 

[dmacgreg37]

100% bang on! Those coaches should all be on the HockeyCanada blacklist. Add the scouting staff while they're at it.

The same scouting staff that won gold last year? There was 1 change on the entire management staff from year to year, and wasn't the director.

 

[thepuckmonster]

Exactly how I feel. Its really strange that not 1 player was consistently good. Not sure I can remember another such case.
A few guys that have received little fanfare but should have are.......

Beauvillier
Chartier
Stephens
Dermott
Chabot
All the above played their limited roles well and I believe all are eligible next year. They'll be ready for greater roles and have both a score to settle and experience to draw from.

Problem is those returning forwards are going to be similar to Virtanen this year. It's not great when you're expecting energy players from the year before to step in and produce a lot of offense.

I don't think Jake will be attending any Mensa conferences in the near future but I do think the expectations on him were a bit weird. He definitely should have had a better all around tournament no doubt but he wasn't producing last year either. I don't want to say he was still injured but he hadn't played for 3 weeks prior to the tournament so I have no clue why TC wanted him there given the situation.

Just again, a strange roster from top to bottom.

 

[dubey]

Marner WILL NOT be in the NHL next year

Yup he will

He's proving nothing in the OHL. I'd rather him play 12 minutes than skate circles around an entire leauge.

 

[Humppaknight]

Congratulate them for what having the refs hand the the game? For the second time this tournament?

No thanks, the Finns did nothing today to deserve any congratulations.

LMAO

Did you watch the same game?

 

[NyQuil]

Say what you want about our guys not being 19 but Finland is succeeding with their youngsters.

 

[McAsuno]

What's frustrating about Virtanen is that he's one of the few guys (only guy?) with real NHL experience.

He should be the most professional guy on the team.

And he's a returnee from the previous WJC last year. You think he'll be a leader on this team, but instead, he's killing momentum for the team while doing barely anything offensively, while taking stupid penalties.