WJC: Team Finland 2019 U20 WJC Roster Talk

[CLW]

Not a fun team to watch at all, we were lucky but can't be mad after a comeback win like this.

We have to give the kids credit for playing their hearts out; even when it felt like nothing was happening for the team they kept going and going.

I fear the Swiss with their fantastic team speed and attitude will be another huge test for Finland. Hopefully the Finns get a boost of confidence from this win and sort out their basic set up play.

 

[Hokinaittii]

Massive morale booster for the kids (and fans).

 

[ijuka]

It is so painful to watch Ahokas hockey. I hate the slow build up from the back, I don't think it fits small rink hockey at all. But I can't deny it felt good to win. Two more games of this....

So disgusting. Several times Finland had an amazing chance for a speedy counterattack, likely gaining an advantage or at the very least getting forwards on D and hence a good opportunity to beat them on 1-on-1s. Yet Finland intentionally pulls back and circles around, allowing the opponent to make a perfect defensive formation that they've practiced hundreds of times, I'm sure.

This terrible outdated slow attack style of team Finland always allows the defending team to be at their most comfortable. It's such a ridiculously stupid idea I can't believe Finland's so far behind the times.

 

[Mick Riddleton]

That play by Vaakanainen with less than 59 seconds to go in the game was b@llsy. He stepped up on the Canadian forward instead of playing it safe and backing up. He actually kicked it right to Tolvanen, who ended up making a great rush that tied it. No one mentioned that play by Vaak on TSN, who was out with a concussion for a long time and just started skating a couple weeks ago.

 

[TheGoldenJet]

Vaakanainen has been good. Nice pick by Boston, could be a solid two way D man in the NHL next year.

Jokiharju meanwhile has been invisible. Gifted every opportunity but not doing much in the games that count.

 

[ChicagoBullsFan]

The defense can not move the puck; the forwards are sloppy with the puck and imprecise with their passes. The puck movement of the whole team was terrible. Heinola was playing really well for Team Finland; the injury is a shame.

Oskari Laaksonen is atrocious with the puck.

The team out-shot Team Canada, but they have significant holes. Team Finland needs to be careful around Team Switzerland, as the Swiss play a fast, disciplined game -- good enough to day, along with their goaltender, to shut out Team Sweden.

What's up with Lundell's inability to make tape-to-tape passes? The hockey gods smiled upon Team Finland today. They need to pay it back with smarter play in the semifinals.

I don't know what a hell you have expected Lundell but he's been one the best Finns in this tournament. He's double underage player and his main tournament is U18 WJC's in Sweden this April.

So let Lundell kid time to grow and mature before judging him more.
Maybe in this tournament Lundell hasn't showed his best but in HIFK's sm liiga team he's been very good. And this comes a guy who's seen more ( I'm HIFK fan) Lundell's games than you.

 

[Mick Riddleton]

Vaakanainen has been good. Nice pick by Boston, could be a solid two way D man in the NHL next year.

Jokiharju meanwhile has been invisible. Gifted every opportunity but not doing much in the games that count.

He plays so many important minutes and has ice water in his veins. Sometimes I would like to see him speed things up. He is very smart and always one step ahead of the fore checkers in thinking were the pass should go. He is only going to get better, too bad that plug Borowiecki took him out with that illegal elbow. Vaak missed a lot of time and would have been on the Bruins dee for a few months with all the injuries they had.

 

[clydesdale line]

Finland will beat Canada. They will play a lot better when it realy counts.

This guy knows what he's talking about.

 

[king89]

Vaakanainen has been good. Nice pick by Boston, could be a solid two way D man in the NHL next year.

Jokiharju meanwhile has been invisible. Gifted every opportunity but not doing much in the games that count.

Jokiharju was a beast today? i would say that he is growing for every game, Vaakanainen too. The Swedish experts said that Jokiharjus performance today was one of the best they have ever seen by a defender in the world juniors.

 

[Ippenator]

I thought this should be rather in this thread after all.

Quoted @Gsus in the Finland-Canada thread:
”Kakko was unbelievably invisible tonight. I mean usually he's one of the better players in a game. Wasnt bad, just didn't show too much. I think he'll steal the stage in the upcoming games tho.”

My answer:
He is very young still. And he is not also maybe as good as many of us Finns like to think of him (me too quite often). He is honestly a bit one sided really. A bit funny to say this about his type of a player, but I mean it that his game seems to be mostly about buzzing around with the puck, but not producing even close to as much real quality chances as it would be needed with that kind of puck skills. I also don't like at all the fact that he is having quite a hard time in scoring goals or even getting himself to really good scoring positions at this level. He also really doesn't shoot enough, and honestly his shot isn’t even that great. But definitely he should still shoot much more and get himself more into shooting positions. Otherwise he will be a one sided buzzer in the corners.

But of course all might change still even in this tournament, or at least next year, if he doesn't play already in the NHL, which I don't think he should do yet honestly, as I don't think that he will be really ready for it next season.

 

[Periwinkle]

For some reason I thought the game was on tomorrow and missed it, lol.
Probably good for the blood pressure..
Did we look better than in previous games?

 

[clydesdale line]

Jokiharju was a beast today? i would say that he is growing for every game, Vaakanainen too. The Swedish experts said that Jokiharjus performance today was one of the best they have ever seen by a defender in the world juniors.

He was unreal. Nearly played every shift in OT too.

 

[jalperi]

For some reason I thought the game was on tomorrow and missed it, lol.
Probably good for the blood pressure..
Did we look better than in previous games?

Definately much better, best game this far on tournament.

 

[CLW]

Definately much better, best game this far on tournament.

Our team game was labored offensively but the lads really dug deep and stuck with it and got the breaks.

 

[Hokinaittii]

I thought this should be rather in this thread after all.

Quoted @Gsus in the Finland-Canada thread:
”Kakko was unbelievably invisible tonight. I mean usually he's one of the better players in a game. Wasnt bad, just didn't show too much. I think he'll steal the stage in the upcoming games tho.”

​

My answer:
He is very young still. And he is not also maybe as good as many of us Finns like to think of him (me too quite often). He is honestly a bit one sided really. A bit funny to say this about his type of a player, but I mean it that his game seems to be mostly about buzzing around with the puck, but not producing even close to as much real quality chances as it would be needed with that kind of puck skills. I also don't like at all the fact that he is having quite a hard time in scoring goals or even getting himself to really good scoring positions at this level. He also really doesnt shoot enough, and honestly his shoot isn’t even that great. But definitely he should still shoot much more and get himself more into shooting positional. Otherwise he will be a one sided buzzer in the corners.

But of course all might change still even in this tournament, or at least next year, if he doesn't play already in the NHL, which I don't think he should do yet honestly, as I don't think that he will be really ready for it next season.

Let's not overreact after couple of mediocre games when he was one of the few people carrying this team's offence in the first games of the tournament.

Like you said, he is 17 and he has all the tools to be great. Not everyone has things sorted out at that age. I'm sure coaches will focus on making him to shoot more. That's the only thing you can really critizise him for.

I remember some people critizing Matthews for how few goals he had for the amount of chances he had in his rookie season. It didn't take long for those scoring chances to turn into goals. Even if Kakko isn't as good as Matthews, usually when you generate as much as Kakko, the points will come sooner or later.

After all, Kakko has always been a good goalscorer in juniors and even now he has more goals in Liiga than Laine had at the same time and surprisingly enough he has more goals than Tolvanen in the tournament who everyone expected to be one of the best goalscorers in the tournament. It seems like no matter how good goalscorer you are and how much you generate scoring chances, sometimes things just aren't going in.

Even Sebastian Aho went pointless in 5 games in the U20s at the same age. Who could have seen him scoring 13 points next year in U20s and him scoring 30 goals to season as soon as he turned 20?

 

[LOFIN]

IIHF - Game Centre 2019 IIHF World Junior Championship

I still can't figure out these TOT:s. Glad we won, but I think we will face equal or even worse challenge with the Swiss.

 

[kings11]

Let's not overreact after couple of mediocre games when he was one of the few people carrying this team's offence in the first games of the tournament.

Like you said, he is 17 and he has all the tools to be great. Not everyone has things sorted out at that age. I'm sure coaches will focus on making him to shoot more. That's the only thing you can really critizise him for.

I remember some people critizing Matthews for how few goals he had for the amount of chances he had in his rookie season. It didn't take long for those scoring chances to turn into goals. Even if Kakko isn't as good as Matthews, usually when you generate as much as Kakko, the points will come sooner or later.

After all, Kakko has always been a good goalscorer in juniors and even now he has more goals in Liiga than Laine had at the same time and surprisingly enough he has more goals than Tolvanen in the tournament who everyone expected to be one of the best goalscorers in the tournament. It seems like no matter how good goalscorer you are and how much you generate scoring chances, sometimes things just aren't going in.

Even Sebastian Aho went pointless in 5 games in the U20s at the same age. Who could have seen him scoring 13 points next year in U20s and him scoring 30 goals to season as soon as he turned 20?

Dude, Auston Matthews had 40 goals his rookie year!! Who the hell critized him??

 

[Ippenator]

Dude, Auston Matthews had 40 goals his rookie year!! Who the hell critized him??

Read again his post and try to really understand what he wrote. I will help you a bit. During his rookie season there was a quite serious drought for him when he couldn't get goals despite having loads of chances. He did get some criticism during that time. But before the end of the season he started scoring really well again, and ended up with that magnificent 40 goals for his rookie season.

 

[kings11]

Read again his post and try to really understand what he wrote. I will help you a bit. During his rookie season there was a quite serious drought for him when he couldn't get goals despite having loads of chances. He did get some criticism during that time. But before the end of the season he started scoring really well again, and ended up with that magnificent 40 goals for his rookie season.

I read his post a few times but your explanation is pretty easy to understand. I don’t view Kakko as a goal scorer honestly, I see him more as a playmaker, a 40-50 assist a year type. I’ve said he reminds me of Alexander Frolov with better wheels.

 

[Mestaruus]

I kind of said this in the CAN-FIN game thread, but I'll repeat some of it since you all talk about Kakko now:

Kakko and Lundell are both young guys, but I feel like Kakko is way more mature for this U20 tournament to play big minutes than Lundell. Lundell is sometimes invisible, which is to be expected for such a young guy and I don't expect anything more of Lundell, he's been great and the minutes he has been getting are pretty justified. It's also great how solid they both seem to be as two play players.

When Lundell sometimes is invisible, I think it affects Kakko a little bit as well, because center usually is the heart of the line. I don't feel like Kakko's average TOI is justified and we can get more out of him and fix our scoring potential a little bit by letting him play in two different lines in 3rd periods if it's a close game and if it seems like some winger in other line is not having a good game.

So a very basic way to get more out of one of our best players and I don't know why Ahokas isn't doing that. Is Ahokas looking too much into Kakko's age? I think Kakko can take those minutes and the spotlight regardless of him being so much under aged.

 

[Hokinaittii]

I read his post a few times but your explanation is pretty easy to understand. I don’t view Kakko as a goal scorer honestly, I see him more as a playmaker, a 40-50 assist a year type. I’ve said he reminds me of Alexander Frolov with better wheels.

Kakko is definately more of a playmaker than goalscorer but with his tools you can expect him to reach ~30 goals regularly, as long as things go as planned with his developement. Just don't expect him to be sniping most of his goals like Laine or Tolvanen.

 

[ChicagoBullsFan]

After winning Canada in their home ice i think this team has good chance to win something great.
Switzerland in semifinal isn't easy task but if / when we can play as good as versus Canada and perhaps be a bit better using scoring chances this team can go U20 WJC gold medal game.

Congrats boys for great win and good luck to semifinals.

 

[FinPanda]

Our record in recent games against Switzerland is nearly 50-50. I expect it to be a very close game.

 

[MarVell]

I think it will all depend on the players this time. If they underestimate the swiss and think the gold medal game is a done deal, then they will lose for sure. But if the mind set is right, and everyone is on their toes, I think they got this.

 

[Jaska]

Class act from Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen giving Mikey DiPietro a tap before celebrating with his team. Tendy love stays strong.