Retroglyphs
Registered User
- Mar 23, 2018
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WC: Team Finland 2019 men's World Championships roster talk
- Thread starter ChicagoBullsFan
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Raimo Helminen is a finish hockey legend, and thus must be a legit first-line centre.
Raimo Helminen is probably my all-time favorite hockey player because I've lived in Tampere my entire life. He was no legit first-line centre at the WHC level in 1998. Still better than Juha Ikonen and Joni Lius though.
Eye of Ra
Grandmaster General of the International boards
So this is the team to Carlson Hockey Games? Leijonat - Leijonien kokoonpano ensi viikon Tshekin EHT-turnaukseen selvillä
Lehtonen - Koivisto
Mikkola - Jokiharju
Lindbohm - Kaski
Rajala - Manninen - Kakko
Pesonen - Savinainen - Nättinen
Kuusela - Lammikko - Ilomäki
Sallinen - Tyvräinen - Anttila
Lehtonen - Koivisto
Mikkola - Jokiharju
Lindbohm - Kaski
Rajala - Manninen - Kakko
Pesonen - Savinainen - Nättinen
Kuusela - Lammikko - Ilomäki
Sallinen - Tyvräinen - Anttila
Eye of Ra
Grandmaster General of the International boards
He had a good season in NLA. Is not Antilla more of a checker?
mattihp
Registered User
Rajala does not create enough chances on his own and is pretty much only ok without a premium center. He is of not much use when he is not scoring.
Yes but Manninen & Savinainen at the wing and Ruotsalainen & Ilomäki at center. As you see our team is quite stacked
Raipe may not have been an ideal 1C at the time, but he was still a solid emergency option. He had the necessary skills for the job and, while the depth wasn't what it was today, he was among the four best Finnish centermen available to us back then. He didn't make it to all those WHCs and six olympics by accident.
This squad lacks even that option, at least at the moment. There's not a single creature I'd rank in our present top ten. All we can do is cross our fingers and hope that at least one of them would be someone we'd be willing to rank in our top-20 post-tournament. After all, "unproven" is not synonymous to "garbage".
Also, that 1998 squad had Peltonen and Kapanen, who were genuine top shelf players for us, so at the very least it had everything required to build a competitive first unit. It also had young Olli Jokinen, who was already dressing for his second WHC tournament. So while there was little depth, there was no complete void of proven offensive talent. So it's not quite a comparable situation. I know we've pulled off some pretty mean feats with rosters that shouldn't have been competitive, but usually those squads have featured at least one or two guys that have been of the proven quality - our issue's usually been the lack of depth, not the complete absence of proven talent. And the former is way easier to overcome than the latter, as long as those bottom unit picks put on their work gloves and buy into the system.
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Why not. Hintz with 3 points tonight, man he would be a needed addition.
Eye of Ra
Grandmaster General of the International boards
Yes but Manninen & Savinainen at the wing and Ruotsalainen & Ilomäki at center. As you see our team is quite stacked
But both Manninen and Savinainen can play center?
I guess there will come some players from Kärpät and HPK? Hakanpää, Ohtamaa, Vehviläinen, Turinen, Leskinen.
Maybe Kupari and Heponiemi is ready?
Veterans such as J.Jokinen, Osala...?
That would change the team alot.
Lankinen
Vehviläinen
Olkinuora
Lehtonen - Koivisto
Mikkola - Jokiharju
Ohtamaa - Hakanpää
Lindbohm - Kaski
Manninen - Heponiemi - Savinanien
J.Jokinen - Kupari - Kakko
Turunen - Lammikko - Leskinen
Osala - Ruotsalainen - Anttila
Ilomäki, Pesonen
Manninen and Savinainen can play centre, but even this squad has more preferable options for the slot. Ilomäki is perhaps the best out of this presently underwhelming, ragtag band. He won't be a scratch.
J.Jokinen has already said he won't be available this year. Osala hasn't been all that impressive, especially after the playoffs began. There will be some additions from the Liiga finals no doubt, the five you listed are all decent bets. Don't quite see Kupari and Heponiemi making it yet. And the latter hasn't played center all season anyway.
If the centre selection doesn't magically improve over the last EHT leg (as in, the present ones do something to instill a little more confidence), the guy they should be taking a long, hard look at is Robert Leino.
FinPanda
Barkov Stanley cup champ!
Nice to see a Swede predicting Finnish roster. And you are not doing a bad job doing it. I don't think Kupari will be on the team, Heponiemi maybe.
Yeah Helminen started to be slow.. painfully slow at that point. But he was one of the smartest players that I have seen. He could create offense, but he never overplayed in offensive zone. Despite being slow he played top notch defensive play. He rarely made a mistake.
Kontiola wasn´t (isn´t) similar kind of player, but in same manner while not being world class center he could be number one in this level. Or Jarkko Immonen. I was hoping someone like Miro Aaltone to elevate his game to that level this year. Sadly he is not on the team.
Robert Leino is an option, but not for number one center.
Heponiemi isn´t really giving a great selling speach in playoffs. Not that I think he has been bad. But definitely would need to show more to earn straight spot to the team.
Savinainen definitely as winger. He can be even glueguy in first line. Manninen I guess I prefer him as winger, but maybe with this options I could think him as center.
Leino is the same kind of option as Ilomäki, Ruotsalainen and Lammikko are. As in, in a more ideal situation they wouldn't be options at all, but right now one of them must do. Unless Hintz drops into our lap, that is.
Eye of Ra
Grandmaster General of the International boards
Lugano. Had a middling season and spent most of it injured, to boot. Frankly, he wouldn't add anything to the team it already doesn't have. Rajala, Manninen and Kuusela are highly similar players.
Eye of Ra
Grandmaster General of the International boards
NHL-Players: USA 18(With much Star-Power) Sweden 18 Russia 15(With much Star-Power too) Canada 13 Czech 7 Slovakia 7 Swiss 4 Germany 3 Finland 3(LOL). It s a big joke!
Dont worry, Komarov will come.
NHL-Players: USA 18(With much Star-Power) Sweden 18 Russia 15(With much Star-Power too) Canada 13 Czech 7 Slovakia 7 Swiss 4 Germany 3 Finland 3(LOL). It s a big joke!
I feel like we have 2 or under NHL players currently. Lammikko is a 50% NHL player and a half AHL guy. I think that Lammikko might spend even more games in the AHL next season compared to this season as Florida sees him as a very expendable piece. Depends a lot on Quenneville though.
Jokiharju has a bright future but he's something like 0.75 NHL player because of that new head coach's decision to send him to AHL made him loose some valuable NHL experience. It's just hard to call Jokiharju a legitimate NHL player currently, so I give him a 0.75.
0.5+0.75=1.25 NHL players
That's what we got in my opinion or did I forget someone?
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I'm not feeling too sad though because I'm pretty sure Finland will upset at least one of the monster teams despite of the weak roster.
There is a top-4 in this tournament when it comes to gold favorites in my opinion
Tier 1: Sweden, Russia, USA and Canada.
Tier 2: Finland, Czech, Switzerland
Despite of the tiers I think that Finland will beat one of the giants of tier 1 at some point of the tournament. I don't know at what stage but I think it will happen. Hopefully in the game of death (=Quarter final).
The games between T2 teams will be one goal thrillers. Finland can face SUI or CZE in the playoffs earliest.
USA isn't very likely to win gold as they almost always under perform with their monster teams. Got to keep them in T1 though.
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