I don't expect Jalonen to give him a straight spot to the roster either so the argument is a bit pointless but I like him a lot.
The reality is that the 8 defenders are coming from the current bunch and I'm okay with that
Team Finland WC 2023
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The reality is that the 8 defenders are coming from the current bunch and I'm okay with that
mattihp
Registered User
Bringing someone over just to maybe get a spot is cruel. Didn't work out for Kari and not for Aravirta either.
Head-to-head, Salo might be a middling upgrade over Koivisto and Riikola. (Not drawing a comparison to Kemiläinen, since he's a righty.) But he's not someone I see Jalonen granting a direct spot. Although he's not a complete unknown to Jalonen either; he participated in three EHT tournaments between 2020-22.
But, yeah, barring a quick exit for Dallas, the eight d-men will be picked out of the present EHT roster.
But, yeah, barring a quick exit for Dallas, the eight d-men will be picked out of the present EHT roster.
Yeah Välimäki did impress me this season as well. His career was almost done in the NHL and then he was moved through waivers if I remember right and he just blossomed when he was given a proper chance (hello Lauri Markkanen), while not getting injuries. Ironic that Calgary's stubborn head coach is now fired as well. The guy had no faith in Välimäki at all. Too bad that for what ever reason he's not battling for a spot into the WHC team.
I'm quite sure that Jalonen wouldn't put Lammikko to wing in a EHT game this close to the start of the WHC tournament, unless he planned to use him in that position and unfortunately for Lammikko it's really crowded at the wing position, but there's some possibility on what you said about players avoiding injuries because they are locked to be in the final team. Lammikko is a Jalonen familiar sure and some kind of national hero, because he's been in some of these national teams which had success lately but we got so many of these national heroes so can't just go promising spots to guys like this. Btw I like Lammikko myself. I just think Sallinen might be higher in Jalonen's mind and that's just based on my feeling, nothing else. Those two are really close in comparison if they are battling for the same spot.
Good find and not impossible, but I'll give it a pretty low chance. Just a feeling, because the guy isn't established enough in the NHL and he would've needed to do some EHT games and now it's too late for that. A guy like that straight to Jalonen's team sounds just so non J.Jalonen. He's a good player though. I like him. NHL breakthrough in the future and he would be noticed better by Jalonen as well. They'd do more scouting on him and so on.
I like him too. He's a good option for one of the bottom lines - as long as said line is more defensively oriented. But since we don't have a shortage of quality wingers, he doesn't quite have a natural niche this year.
Jalonen has to make some hard decisions with the player cuts. It's very interesting and even entertaining to see what they will be. Imagine if someone like Rajala will be a complete beast in the next two games. Another new positive problem then. It will be interesting to see all these Swiss league players joining in the next few games. I assume that most of them play in both of those games.
One more thing I want to say. Since there's just 1 week of time left before the USA game, from that perspective it wouldn't be bad to just bring those 3 NHL guns together in the same unit. I'm talking about Laine-Rantanen-Kakko of course. That way we could already have the 3 other lines together playing, practicing and creating synergy together so our team's playing wouldn't look like mess in the USA game.
I'll be surprised if Jalonen puts Rantanen as a center right away though, but maybe Jalonen thinks that he can experiment and see how it'll go in the beginning of the tournament and switch it later if it isn't good enough for Jalonen. We'll most likely know pretty much everything regarding lines in the beginning of next week when the reporters will start leaking the lines in practices when Rantanen & folks have arrived. That happens every year. It's nice that we don't have to wait all the way to the USA game for that information.
If Jalonen wants to be sure that the synergy is there for the USA game, in other words fast forwarding the synergy creation, the obvious combinations he shouldn't break are:
Hartikainen-Manninen-x (MaG if chosen to the team at all. Someone mentioned that Kakko played with them in 2019, but that's 4 years ago, which is a quite longish time)
x-Suomela-Kapanen (MaG good in this line also. Pesonen looked good in last game in this one as well)
x-Björninen-Anttila
Those pairs are most likely locked. It would be just so easy to test that Kakko-Rantanen-Laine in the USA game, without having to touch these other working pairs. However Laine isn't even confirmed to play so that would change some things if he didn't come. Insterting Rantanen with Suomela-Kapanen then would a good thing to do and Kakko with his 2019 line mates, Hartikainen & Manninen.
Sweden game is the 3rd game for our team. If our team fail's in both of these games, USA & SWE, we don't win the group, because rest of the games in the group are much easier. So the team has to be ready early on if we want to truly battle for the group win.
I'll be surprised if Jalonen puts Rantanen as a center right away though, but maybe Jalonen thinks that he can experiment and see how it'll go in the beginning of the tournament and switch it later if it isn't good enough for Jalonen. We'll most likely know pretty much everything regarding lines in the beginning of next week when the reporters will start leaking the lines in practices when Rantanen & folks have arrived. That happens every year. It's nice that we don't have to wait all the way to the USA game for that information.
If Jalonen wants to be sure that the synergy is there for the USA game, in other words fast forwarding the synergy creation, the obvious combinations he shouldn't break are:
Hartikainen-Manninen-x (MaG if chosen to the team at all. Someone mentioned that Kakko played with them in 2019, but that's 4 years ago, which is a quite longish time)
x-Suomela-Kapanen (MaG good in this line also. Pesonen looked good in last game in this one as well)
x-Björninen-Anttila
Those pairs are most likely locked. It would be just so easy to test that Kakko-Rantanen-Laine in the USA game, without having to touch these other working pairs. However Laine isn't even confirmed to play so that would change some things if he didn't come. Insterting Rantanen with Suomela-Kapanen then would a good thing to do and Kakko with his 2019 line mates, Hartikainen & Manninen.
Sweden game is the 3rd game for our team. If our team fail's in both of these games, USA & SWE, we don't win the group, because rest of the games in the group are much easier. So the team has to be ready early on if we want to truly battle for the group win.
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Oh I wasn't listing all the locked players. That wasn't my intention. Armia is a lock of course, but it's just so random with him where he'll be. My hope is bottom-6 and away from the PP unit, but I don't think that will happen. He's a decent mask man and a rightie if we want to use his one timer. I'll give him that, just not very productive in the NHL and I'm not a full believer he will be as offensively productive in the next WHC tournament as he was a year ago in the WHC tournament.
If Laine can play, then it indeed makes a ton of sense to stick the three top shelf NHLers together (with Rantanen down the middle). But even if that's done, there's still quite the puzzle to solve in the lower lines.
If we assume that ex-Ufa is another unit, it leaves Kapanen-Suomela-Armia as the natural third line. But that still leaves Pesonen hanging...
Well, there's still one LW spot left - next to Björninen. And Pesonen is multipurpose enough that he could slot even there. The other option is to cut MaG to make room for Pesonen. Of course, if Laine can't play, then Pesonen has enough room in the lineup - but even in this scenario, it requires placing Rantanen at center.
Bottom line, the math just doesn't add up without Rantanen down the middle - so it'd be hardly surprising at all. Well, unless Jalonen plans on sidelining two of his well-performing winger familiars and favor one of Lammikko/Sallinen/Ruohomaa instead. Which I won't say couldn't happen, but looks still like the more unlikely scenario.
I don't think that the full UFA is needed. We all know that most important pieces of that are Manninen & Hartikainen. They've had some good tournaments with the NT without MaG. MaG is in jeopardy to be cut as much as Lammikko is in my opinion.
Pesonen now feels like impossible to be cut. I've very often over the years suggested cutting him and he just proves that idea wrong every time. It's not just the last game and those goals but he is a very steady performer. It's true however that if a player is in a close battle with other players, goals and offensive production is usually what makes the difference. Well of course at the same time it's not recommended to leak in the defensive end either.
I'm disappointed if Ruohomaa takes one forward slot and someone like MaG will be cut because of that. Winger vs center yes, but it's the same thing really because we have Lammikko and Sallinen who can play both positions if you get what I mean.
Imagine if Jalonen would do something as wild as this:
Laine-Rantanen-Kakko
Manninen-Suomela-Hartikainen
Eliteprospects does say that Manninen is a winger as well as we talked about few weeks ago. I'm guessing that's an impossible thought though because Manninen played center yesterday. I would imagine that Jalonen would've tested him in the wing in EHT, which is a perfect place for experiments.
FinPanda
Barkov Stanley cup champ!
I remember when we dreamed about getting Barkov, Lundell, and Luostarinen but now I hope they win a cup.
One additional aspect is that Pesonen seemed to have some chemistry with Kapanen last night. Which is all and good, except it makes it more difficult to find room for Armia. One option would be dropping Joppe down to the 4th line, but that would put Mörkö in jeopardy... (and, still, this is all assuming that Rantanen plays center).
It's one heck of a puzzle, for sure.
JabbaJabba
Registered User
Laine-Rantanen-Kakko
Hartikainen/Rajala-Manninen-Armia
Pesonen-Lammikko-Kapanen
Oksanen-Björninen-Anttila
Hartikainen/Rajala-Manninen-Armia
Pesonen-Lammikko-Kapanen
Oksanen-Björninen-Anttila
Jersey Fan 12
Positive Vibes
- Nov 20, 2006
- 7,491
- 3,274
Interesting that former BC Eagle Julius Mattila was in the camp. Has he progressed to the level of playing for the national team or is that more for preparing for future EHT tournaments?
Who do you root for if it's Florida-Carolina in the next round?
More like preparing him for the future. He did´nt realistically had any chance for makin it to the final team this year.
FinPanda
Barkov Stanley cup champ!
Hard choice so I guess it wouldn't matter, after all if it is Carolina/Florida vs Dallas for the cup, I'm happy.
Variant 1 without Laine:
Pesonen-Rantanen-Kapanen
Granlund-Manninen-Hartikainen
Kakko-Suomela-Armia
Oksanen-Björninen-Anttila
Lammikko
Variant 2 without Laine:
Kakko-Rantanen-Armia
Granlund-Manninen-Hartikainen
Pesonen-Suomela-Kapanen
Oksanen-Björninen-Anttila
Lammikko
Variant 3 with Laine:
Laine-Rantanen-Kakko
Granlund-Manninen-Hartikainen
Pesonen-Suomela-Kapanen
Oksanen-Björninen-Anttila
Lammikko
Variant 4 with Laine:
Pesonen-Rantanen-Kapanen
Laine-Manninen-Hartikainen
Kakko-Suomela-Armia
Oksanen-Björninen-Anttila
Lammikko
The reason I'm putting Lammikko as the 13th is only because he can play any position and any role if someone gets injured or doesn't play well. He's more versatile than Sallinen, Rajala or Ruohomaa. Sallinen can't replace someone in the top 6 while Ruohomaa and Rajala can't play in the 4th line, penalty kill etc.
Pesonen-Rantanen-Kapanen
Granlund-Manninen-Hartikainen
Kakko-Suomela-Armia
Oksanen-Björninen-Anttila
Lammikko
Variant 2 without Laine:
Kakko-Rantanen-Armia
Granlund-Manninen-Hartikainen
Pesonen-Suomela-Kapanen
Oksanen-Björninen-Anttila
Lammikko
Variant 3 with Laine:
Laine-Rantanen-Kakko
Granlund-Manninen-Hartikainen
Pesonen-Suomela-Kapanen
Oksanen-Björninen-Anttila
Lammikko
Variant 4 with Laine:
Pesonen-Rantanen-Kapanen
Laine-Manninen-Hartikainen
Kakko-Suomela-Armia
Oksanen-Björninen-Anttila
Lammikko
The reason I'm putting Lammikko as the 13th is only because he can play any position and any role if someone gets injured or doesn't play well. He's more versatile than Sallinen, Rajala or Ruohomaa. Sallinen can't replace someone in the top 6 while Ruohomaa and Rajala can't play in the 4th line, penalty kill etc.
karhukissa
Registered User
- Apr 2, 2019
- 1,947
- 2,795
Finland is pretty clear gold medal favourite, i don't remember time when it's been like this. It's also home soil and everything aside from gold is a huge disappointment.
Defense isn't that big of a deal, Finland defend as a unit. Lehtonen is more than enough for PP d-man and then we also have some grit to battle in front of the net in the d-zone. It all comes down to pressure and how this team handles it.
Defense isn't that big of a deal, Finland defend as a unit. Lehtonen is more than enough for PP d-man and then we also have some grit to battle in front of the net in the d-zone. It all comes down to pressure and how this team handles it.
Roster size is 25, so there's 2 extra forwards. And in game there's no 13th if you take 8D like Jalonen.
This one won't happen because it doesn't feature Armia. Jalonen has stated openly that if NHLers are willing to come, they have room in the squad.
That is true. But Lammikko has a good shot at being among the 2 extras
True! Forgot him on that one. He could replace Oksanen or Granlund in there for example
