WJC: Team Finland 2018 U20 WJC Roster Talk

[BK]

Thoughts on Jokiharju's play?

 

[vaiski]

Thoughts on Jokiharju's play?

Definitely Finland's most consistent defenseman. Don't remember him making many mistakes and he was good offensively.

 

[MrHeiskanen]

Those numbers matched up with his play. He just wasn't that impressive. Of course you're not gonna like stats that show Mr. Heiskanen in a bad light. Take off your homer glasses and realize he had a disappointing tournament. Doesn't change the fact he's having an amazing season in Liiga.

I agree, he wasn't impressive. But I disagree that he was disappointing which is what I was commenting on.

 

[Sens of Anarchy]

Thoughts on Jokiharju's play?

Very good in the games I watched

 

[Esko6]

The tournament ended too soon, but there were a lot of positives there. I do not remember Finland dominating quality opposition like Czechia in a while. Even against Canada and USA they showed glimpses even though it was in a small rink.

The coaching was not great, but with a little bit more puck luck the game would have ended differently and everyone would be happy.

 

[kabidjan18]

Don't worry be happy Finland.

This is the (hockey-) generation who's gonna kick it for Finland.

Young men grow ya see - and the explosion among the men in Finland-defense is just tremendous!

Even Canada is chicken-**** compared to that!

More Finns backwards will be stars in the NHL than Canadians from this junior-tournament.

what even is this saying?

I'm still upset about Kotkaniemi. I really think he could have been the difference.

 

[Loffer]

An unimpressive showing from the coaching staff. Begs the question how these coaches of the Federation are selected and what kind of backgrounds they have. An academic education is not an automatic path to success but some competence and intelligence would be fair and welcome. These tools are just not enough. Sauna buddy culture prevails and lives on in the formidable shadow of the fat ugly! Congrats.

 

[Whileee]

Thoughts on Jokiharju's play?

I thought he was strong in moving the puck and offensively, but he had problems defensively.

 

[pylon17]

i know im late to the party but why, oh why, was somppi not chosen?

who made these decisions? who?

who's making the decisions for finland?

do these people feel ashamed? do they look in the mirror every day and look away because they can't even look at themselves?

have they been fired/re-assigned/replaced?

it's funny because somppi's development exploded this year.

 

[jvr32]

i know im late to the party but why, oh why, was somppi not chosen?

who made these decisions? who?

who's making the decisions for finland?

do these people feel ashamed? do they look in the mirror every day and look away because they can't even look at themselves?

have they been fired/re-assigned/replaced?

it's funny because somppi's development exploded this year.

Ultimately the responsibility goes to head coach Jussi Ahokas, who had the final say in the team selections. Funny thing is that I called before the announcements that Somppi should be included in the team. But it wasn't unpopular opinion or anything. Good hockey guys like Steve Yzerman have noticed his development and Tampa's intention is to sign him to ELC. It was pretty obvious for everyone to see that the Finland's selected team had big flaws. Other notable omissions were Turkulainen, Luostarinen and Kotkaniemi.

The team was pretty much selected already in the Summer Showcase tournament. Already there was very odd selections like Innala, Jaaska, Moilanen... They wanted them to PK, but it was strange since Somppi, Luostarinen and Turkulainen could have done that and have done that well in their season and on top of that have been good scorers. There was very little turnover since in the showcase selections compared to the main tournament. Maybe they wanted to create chemistry early in the summer and not ruin that with new players. That means what happened early in this season didn't matter. The displays were given much earlier and that was enough to them. But on the other hand that it was odd that they brought in Kupari who had not shown a lot and was not included in the previous teams. It was very strange. It was not super surprising or shocking that the tournament was a big flop in my opinion. The head coach will stay the same for next year's tournament, which is a bit questionable.