WC: Team Finland

[The Cannon of Tesoma]

The General may be so-so, soldiers maybe this-or-that, but all the same they fly our banner, wear our colors, and wave our flag.

They all will do that with pride.

Nobody of us, here, did earn the spot to the premier unit of our country. We all shall remember that.

Old wisdom says: "It's always easier to say what to do to an other, than to do it by yourself."

In Finland, we have some reserves.

 

[Merya]

How? All I know is that he has apparently let his fathers fame get into his head.

Just rumours from Kuopio mostly.

 

[FiLe]

I can see that Marjamäki is unfortunately continuing with his godawful coaching. After having the IQless speedster that Kapanen is ruining the chemistry of the 1st line and stubborbly using the godawful mr. Stonehand SlowPokka as the 1st PP quarterback he now makes the 3rd line as Jormakka-Manninen-Tolvanen against Canada. What is this guy really? An absolute imbecil or what? That line has absolutely 0% chance of working well, and especially against a team like Canada. It’s also like throwing the very promising but young player like Tolvanen completely to the wolves.

Two midgets whom have been absolute floaters and the two worst forwards in the team and then Tolvanen added with them, and he is also a kind of smallish guy whom is not too physical and had also in the latter part of his season some floating problems. I mean, I sense an absolute catastrophe within that line. Late Lammas is just seriously an idiot, and his judgement is just so often absolutely questionable. Not much of chances that he won’t after this tournament achieve the title of the worst ever Finnish national team coach of the modern times.

The problem is in general still Marjamäki. He is simply stupid with his decisions way too often. Some player choices also simply moronic, like Manninen, Jormakka, Pokka, Koivisto and Niemi (well got after all sent back home, as Tolvanen came to the team) are all players whom simply are not good enough to play in this tournament that has so many good NHL players. Jani Lajunen should have been picked to the team for making the bottom lines strong enough with strength and some experience, and Vesalainen and Jokiharju or Juolevi should have been both picked instead of the horrible choice of Mr. Stonehands SlowPokka, whom is honestly an absolutely terrible defenceman at this level. Even what problems the lack of experience of Jokiharju or Juolevi would have caused, their skating and skills with the puck would have made them enormously better players for the team. I can guarantee that it would have been the case even how much some all knowing people here seem to believe in Marjamäki and his stupid choices.

Also using Kapanen in the 1st line is simply idiotic, especially now that Tolvanen came to the team. Kapanen lacks seriously hockey IQ, and also consistency with his puck controlling skills. He is purely an energy guy at this skill level, and should not be playing on the power play at all, at least now that Tolvanen has joined the team. Kapanen honestly seems like a guy who lacks IQ on the ice and also off the ice, and I have also heard quite a lot about how he can be a bit of a locker room cancer with his arrogance and entitledeness. Still probably a useful player as long as he would accept a role as an energy player in the 3rd or 4th line.

The real threat for this team is simply Marjamäki. I honestly have zero trust in that guy as the national team coach. He is simply Late Lammas, whom seems to be lost most of the time. And makes way too much of even completely stupid decisions and choices.

Quoting these two for posterity.

To be honest though, I didn't fully get today's lineup decisions either. But this is why I usually save my critique, if any is necessary, for the game/tournament post-mortem...

 

[Mestaruus]

The 5 forwards on PP1 was fun. As long as it doesn't backfire on own end they should keep doing it. Last time I saw that from Finland in NT circles was probably Karri Kivi's U20 gold team with 5 forwards. Correct me if I'm wrong or was it Jukka Jalonen hmm. Can't remember. It was 4+ years ago anyways.

I'm also fine with the other option of spreading the talent more between both PP units and utilizing one real defenseman in both PP units since we have some good defensemen for that job.

Rantanen was way better when he wasn't sacrificed as a mask man. I'm glad we got more potential out of him this way as he doesn't really do that mask man job with Colorado either AFAIK.

 

[Ippenator]

Quoting these two for posterity.

To be honest though, I didn't fully get today's lineup decisions either. But this is why I usually save my critique, if any is necessary, for the game/tournament post-mortem...

Sure it can be easily said that he chose well for this game. Or Canada was bad and Finland a bit lucky. But sure I have to admit that I was surprised that the third line was not at all in such trouble as I expected. But didn’t change the fact that Jormakka and Manninen were still pretty bad even today. Just not as bad as I expected. They did get quite badly hemmed into their own zone like I was afraid would happen, but at last they didn’t allow a goal, so in thst way I guess they were ok.

But all that matters in the end is what is the end result in the tournament. Still I think that the lineup was not optimal, but after all it really doesn’t matter when the result was so great.

 

[Kaako Kappo]

I just want to say that i love Anttila. He'll always have a place on the checking line.

 

[DoubleGold]

When taking into account the jetlag and quite crappy linemates, Tolvanen played pretty damn well. Definitely not a waste and I'm happy he's in the team. Säteri is proving himself to be quite the goalie, I don't feel so bad for not getting Rinne or Saros now. Also pleasant that Marjamäki, who's usually extremely stubborn when it comes to making decisions, threw Pokka out of PP1.

 

[Mestaruus]

Man does this image look good now. Before the Canada game there was the fear that we won't even make it to QF if we screw up vs GER with 8 hours less rest. Now one has to be confident that we get full 3 points from GER. Oh how things change...

We want to place 1st or 2nd in our group to avoid SWE or RUS I guess. Those two seem to be almost surely #1 and #2 of the other group.

With GER win on regular time we have 15 points, Canada will have 16 at the end. They have LAT & GER left. Denmark can max reach 14 (they played one game more). We won't face the winner of other group as long as we get 3 points of GER. Sweden is much scarier than RUS in my opinion so we should hope that SWE beats RUS in the final match of that group. Means we aren't forced to beat USA, but if group win warrants us SUI over CZE, we definitely want that!

 

[FinPanda]

Our 4 wins with 28-3 goal difference. What?

 

[NotCommitted]

This is the first tournament I actually feel OK to have Marjamäki at the helm... I'm prepared to be disappointed, but it's almost like at least he has learnt to let his talented players play and that national team is not the same as coaching liiga...

 

[DoubleGold]

This is the first tournament I actually feel OK to have Marjamäki at the helm... I'm prepared to be disappointed, but it's almost like at least he has learnt to let his talented players play and that national team is not the same as coaching liiga...

I'm still too traumatized from the past 1,5 years to say anything . But all aside, things are definitely looking good right now. I'm happy if he ultimately proves everyone wrong and wins this shit.

 

[Mestaruus]

This is the first tournament I actually feel OK to have Marjamäki at the helm... I'm prepared to be disappointed, but it's almost like at least he has learnt to let his talented players play and that national team is not the same as coaching liiga...

I didn't think Marjamäki could beat a North-American team of this level ever. I must say that the puck bounced a lot in our favor in this game. If the bounces had produced one or two goals in in the first 30 mins for Canada, it would've been a totally different game.

 

[FiLe]

Well, looks like the train is back on its tracks. After a brief stumble vs. Denmark, we took that back and are now exactly where most expected us to be - pointwise, I mean.

Sure, some might say without the embarrassing loss to Denmark, we might now have 15 points and be at the top of the group. However, there's no guaranteeing this game would have gone the way it did w/o the Denmark loss exposing some of our weaknesses. And our boys most likely got a nice extra chip on their shoulder from that.

The absolute disaster scenario of missing the QF is now more or less averted. We're not mathematically in yet, but one of two things happening puts us over the top: Finland getting at least a point from Germany tomorrow, and should they fail at that, then Canada needs to beat Latvia in regulation on Monday. It'd be pretty rotten luck if both happened to not go this way. And here's another thing with which the DEN loss will serve us - our boys won't have trouble mentally preparing for tomorrow night. If Germany is to have an advantage here, it will be due to the very thing I was concerned about - the TOIs of our heavy hitters being off the charts. MiG clocked 21+ minutes, and Aho had whopping 24min(!). But I guess it couldn't be helped, because this was a penalty-heavy game.

As one last note... after what Säteri showed tonight, sure feels much less bummed about not getting a more established goalie. Funny how one night can pretty much flip the mood on all counts. Husso may get the game tomorrow, but from then onwards, the net is Säteri's, unless USA totally lights him up.

 

[The Cannon of Tesoma]

Tolvanen. Truly great guy. Sense of duty. Skilled. Speedy. Heart. Work ethic.

No damn disorientation in a circumstances where many so called professionals will decline the call, using hard circumstances as an excuse.

Nailed Canada upon arrival. Haha.

 

[NotCommitted]

Aho & Teräväinen for example showed already in the NHL they can be dangerous together. Somehow I'm convinced Marjamäki a year ago would've managed to "coach" some kind of genius "system" which would've completely killed whatever they have going. Now instead both have been very effective, absolutely feasting on the weaker nations and still putting up points against Canada.

That's about the biggest praise I'm willing to give Marjamäki at this point I'm not saying he's a bad coach, just that whatever he has been trying to do has been horrible in the NT this far - if he has learnt from his mistakes he could still actually end up a great NT coach for this tournament. Like if he can coach that bottom 6 full of "role players" to be somehow effective at their job and at the same time let the top players play with their strengths, it could be said he did well and Finland has a good chance at this tournament. But these one game tournaments are brutal, a little luck can be the difference between finishing 8th and winning it all. This far NT has underachieved under Marjamäki to a degree I don't buy it's only bad luck though...

It's funny, if Finland takes gold, Marjamäki's tenure goes from horrible flop to epic success.

 

[Mestaruus]

Our 4 wins with 28-3 goal difference. What?

Of USA's total 28 goals, almost 50% of their goals in 1 game, if we wanna go there .

 

[TheFinnishTrap]

I'm warming up to Kapanen. Even though he is a bonehead at times, I liked his game today. Good zone entries and used his skating well to evade defenders near the boards to create some space and time for his linemates. Honka was pretty solid as well today.

 

[DoubleGold]

I'm warming up to Kapanen. Even though he is a bonehead at times, I liked his game today. Good zone entries and used his skating well to evade defenders near the boards to create some space and time for his linemates. Honka was pretty solid as well today.

They have their flaws but one great thing about them is their skating. If we get outskated, which is usual against NA, the game is lost.

 

[Mestaruus]

Manninen was probably the worst player with those penalties.

I'm warming up to Kapanen. Even though he is a bonehead at times, I liked his game today. Good zone entries and used his skating well to evade defenders near the boards to create some space and time for his linemates. Honka was pretty solid as well today.

Kapanen was very good on PK today. That one shift was monstrous where he interrupted the puck like 3 times and his shift ended up him making a scoring chance with a pass shorthanded.

 

[Lepardi]

The absolute disaster scenario of missing the QF is now more or less averted. We're not mathematically in yet, but one of two things happening puts us over the top: Finland getting at least a point from Germany tomorrow, and should they fail at that, then Canada needs to beat Latvia in regulation on Monday.

If Finland gets zero points from Germany, Canada beating Latvia in overtime or shootout on Monday will also secure Finland's place in the QF. Canada doesn't have to win in regulation.

 

[Mestaruus]

Guys, those of you who talk of QF spot secured now, this win gave so big boost that Germany will be taken out quite easily tomorrow. 5-2 I'll say. Should focus on theories or ways to avoid Sweden now.

Canada and Sweden are the gold favorites now. You know that Canadians will be a different team in the playoffs. The funny part is that Finland beating GER and getting at least one point from USA game, we would match up Canada with either SWE or RUS in the QF guaranteed. Especially SWE-CAN, two gold favorites meeting in the QF already is entirely possible.

 

[torniojaws]

Old wisdom says: "It's always easier to say what to do to an other, than to do it by yourself."

I prefer: "If you want something to be done correctly, you have to do it yourself"

 

[torniojaws]

Man, when was the last time Denmark was ahead of Canada in points after a significant amount of games played?

 

[torniojaws]

I dont think he’s a lost cause for sure. Could be in fact a useful player for the Jets, if he gets his game together. But so far he has definitely been a disappointment.

12 goals as an "almost-rookie" in a non-playoff team? Not that disappointing, unless you have unrealistic expectations from a 19-year-old

 

[Ippenator]

12 goals as an "almost-rookie" in a non-playoff team? Not that disappointing, unless you have unrealistic expectations from a 19-year-old

It is still more than just his points that have been so far disappointing. He has not developed much in two years and that is for sure disappointing. Especially when his game is having practically the same weaknesses as he had about two years ago. Quite inaccurate shot, fumbling the puck a lot and being too often lost when he is playing without the puck when his team is attacking. I want to see him show clear development in all of these areas already next season. If he can do that, I will start gaining back my confidence in him.