Im sorry but blaming it just on coaches is a bad excuse. No nation is having Scotty Bowman behind the bench here. Yes a coach could make or break you, not going to speculate whether another coach would be better or worse for Finland. Sweden have Grönborg who is hardly a great coach. The good thing about him is that the NHL players seems to like him, which results in them usually going to the Worlds if they can. This is obviously a great trait, but it doesn't really make him a great coach. Prior to that, you had Pär Mårts who was pretty much the exact opposite, along with him not being the best of coaches. Most NHLers declined as soon as they were asked about the Worlds. He still managed to win a gold medal during his time, along with a bronze and 2 silver medals (1 from the Olympics).
I mean if we are gonna make this about coaches, there's gonna be a lot of "what ifs", and you could blame any nations results on just coaching, you are hardly alone here. Im sure Sweden could have won more gold medals at the WJC during this 10 year period if they had a specific type of coach, but they didn't. That's the reality and there's no reason to dwell on it or make any excuses.
As for all of these guys making it, it's a matter of making the 1st step, then continuing on the same path. A lot of players are able to make the 1st step, but then fail to make the next. Look at someone like Pääjärvi who went 9th overall. He made the NHL in his 2nd year, had a pretty good rookie year. After that he stagnated. That 1st NHL season of his is still his best to date. And this is a guy who i personally held pretty high in terms of talent. Thought for sure that he would make the NHL and be a great player. Same goes for Markström, he was considered the best goalie prospect in the world and a sure fire superstar. He made the NHL in the end, but never reached that superstar status. I mean i could go on and on, if you are expecting things to turn out as amazing as you're putting it, you're gonna set yourself up for a disappointment.
There's also a big skill gap between the guys you're mentioning, like Laine and Kapanen. Kapanen hasn't really done anything special at the NHL level yet. Meanwhile, Laine should be considered one of the best goalscorers in the league. Im sorry, but it's a little hard to take your list of players seriously when you're pretty much mentioning every single decent finnish player being born. Again, there's obviously some great players and talents that you mentioned. Sweden have loads of Kapanens who i would never consider mentioning if i was gonna put together a serious list of the best young swedish players.
