WC: Team Finland

[ChicagoBullsFan]

The only thanks I give to Lauri Marjamäki come from that good that
he was a coach who started Team Finland's men's national teams rebuild bringing younger players ( Heiskanen,Juolevi, Tolvanen, Husso,Kapanen, Nutivaara, Vaakanainen, Jokiharju and Björkqvist)to men's national team.

There's still lots of job to do before this process is over.
But i don't care how long it will takes when Finland is back to medals in IIHF men's worlds when the main goal should be in 2022 winter Olympics in Beijing.

 

[Past Considerations]

Why are people blaming the coach for this? An utterly shameful performance by the players, absolutely no competiveness from the players for the first two periods. I didn't even watch the third period, and I don't even care if they played better in that period. If you are not putting 100% from the start at qf's, you're a bunch of undeserving *******s, plain and simple.

Did it occur to you that it might be the job of the coach to wake up the players and extract the maximum out of them?

 

[Periwinkle]

I can only agree to a degree with that being the coach's job. The players are not children, or delicate snowflakes needing guidance at every step. They are professional hockey players. To say that there needs to be a coach's specific instructions to take a game like this seriously is absurd.

 

[FinPanda]

I hope we will never see Pokka again on the national team. It's not gonna happen though now that he will play in Europe. Prepare to watch him play in every EHT tournament! I hope Jalonen is smart and doesn't pick him to the worlds.

 

[Raimo Sillanpää]

I can only agree to a degree with that being the coach's job. The players are not children, or delicate snowflakes needing guidance at every step. They are professional hockey players. To say that there needs to be a coach's specific instructions to take a game like this seriously is absurd.

Patton sent the 4th Army into a legendary offensive after a stirring speech, his men would die for him
He didn’t tell then to clock in at 9, do what they were told to do in basic training and use their accumulated skillz..

Even professionals need a fire lit up under their ass

 

[JustaFinnishGuy]

Why are people blaming the coach for this? An utterly shameful performance by the players, absolutely no competitiveness from the players for the first two periods. I didn't even watch the third period, and I don't even care if they played better in that period. If you are not putting 100% from the start at qf's, you're a bunch of undeserving *******s, plain and simple.

I'm between this opinion and the more popular, Marjamäki is shit opinion.
The leadership wasn't there. I don't care what anyone says, Kukkonen, Koivu have been excellent choices for wearing the C during the 2010's. Granlund, eh not so much. Maybe he took too much pressure from it or something. But he certainly shouldn't be the one with the C going forwards, as no leadership really was present from him.

Ultimately this loss is on Marjamäki, as he didn't adapt to the game enough and didn't keep underachieving players like Pokka on the bench in crucial moments.

 

[Periwinkle]

I'm not saying the coach doesn't play a part in the mental aspect, but one needs to be a special kind of idiot if afer the losses and emergency meetings of the Denmark and Germany games one needs a reminder to play sharply from the start.

 

[ChicagoBullsFan]

I hope we will never see Pokka again on the national team. It's not gonna happen though now that he will play in Europe. Prepare to watch him play in every EHT tournament! I hope Jalonen is smart and doesn't pick him to the worlds.

That does Pokka play in men's worlds with Jalonen's national team depends a lot how many NHL dmans Finland gets.
But you're right and i agree with you Pokka is one of those who must be banned for world championships.

 

[Past Considerations]

I can only agree to a degree with that being the coach's job. The players are not children, or delicate snowflakes needing guidance at every step. They are professional hockey players. To say that there needs to be a coach's specific instructions to take a game like this seriously is absurd.

One can blame the players for not turning up for the 1st and 2nd periods. And then you can blame the coach for doing nothing after two periods or during the 3rd period when you're down by 2 goals.

 

[Ippenator]

I can only agree to a degree with that being the coach's job. The players are not children, or delicate snowflakes needing guidance at every step. They are professional hockey players. To say that there needs to be a coach's specific instructions to take a game like this seriously is absurd.

I don’t think you understand too well about how team dynamic work really. All of the players in this kind of tournament, for the teams that are this far already, are that good, that you need to make sure that you don't give any kind of advantage with the preparations and the motivating of players to the other teams.

The same goes in working life. You usually need to have a great motivating leader to get the best out of the people that play in your ”team”. At this level a mumbling sheep will not cut it. You will give the small advantage that an even slightly skillwise weaker opponent will need and they will punish you for it. This is exactly what has been happening with Marjamäki constantly.

 

[Periwinkle]

I refuse to pin this just to some vague Marjamäki bashing. That's lazy and dishonest in my opinion.
Not saying I think he did a great job, either, of course the coach takes some of the blame.
Unless, of course, he instructed to play it careful, passive and soft. Somehow I doubt that. The details, like playing Pokka so much, of course warrant critisism.

 

[Cuthalu]

I'm not saying the coach doesn't play a part in the mental aspect, but one needs to be a special kind of idiot if afer the losses and emergency meetings of the Denmark and Germany games one needs a reminder to play sharply from the start.

Well, more than half of the finnish team was special kind of idiots. They would clearly benefit from psychological coaching.

 

[BB88]

Why are people blaming the coach for this? An utterly shameful performance by the players, absolutely no competiveness from the players for the first two periods. I didn't even watch the third period, and I don't even care if they played better in that period. If you are not putting 100% from the start at qf's, you're a bunch of undeserving *******s, plain and simple.

Just his use of Pokka deserves ton of ......

 

[Periwinkle]

Well, more than half of the finnish team was special kind of idiots. They would clearly benefit from psychological coaching.

Clearly. I guess we were just one rousing coach's speech from winning.

 

[FinPanda]

Pokka was a 1st line defenseman for us for the whole tournament even though he was awful in every game. He was on the ice when they wanted to score goals while Pokka had 0 points in the tournament? Awful.

 

[DoubleGold]

No one should defend a coach who always froze and failed to react when shit hit the fan. We already saw this in the WCH 2016 and it was a reoccuring theme throughout his tenure in the national team: playing Pokka in the 1st line and 1PP time after time again. I'm sure he lacked spirit in the locker room too.

He's a complete failure and a waste of totally good 2 years. Finland wields the best player arsenal it has ever had, it's about time we start producing the way we should.

 

[Erikfromfin]

quick run down
-Tolvanen & Heiskanen up and coming werent ready to dominate yet
-Granlund clearly not good enough center but also didnt take team on his back as captain
-Rantanen did fine.. I think this tournament proved Aho is the better player thou
-Savinainen did fine but was non factor vs swiss
-Teräväinen mixed bag, couldnt deliver in final stages. I think his more of a product of Ahos brilliance
-Aho will be bonafied 1 center in NHL and carolina. clearly the best player in this team
-Jormakka had effort but hit talent wall
-Manninen completely useless
-Kapanen decent tournament work in progress will have to wait and see how he developes once toronto give bigger role
-Anttila, Pesonen & Mäenalanen ok performances
-Palola useless
-Suomela wasnt bad but didnt shine either, should have been used instead of manninen
-Pokka was out of his league, AHL/KHL caliber defensman who was given too big role, simply not good enough
-Koivisto & Kivistö just average guys
-Nutivaara was solid
-Riikola shoved flashes of talent here and there
-Honka really dissapointing i think Dallas has botched his development, might become wasted talent
-Mikkola,Kilpeläinen why
-Husso needs more developing
-Säteri played well should keep floating in NHL circles

 

[AmericanDream]

wow, was so looking forward to seeing you guys and Canada again...my condolences...

 

[Periwinkle]

As much as Pokka sucked, it's also absurd to pinpoint the reasons for the loss to him.

I think one of the things that proved to be an error, in hindsight, was swapping Tolvanen and Kapanen. They seemed to have better chemistry with their original lines and Tolvanen elevated the play of the 3rd line whereas he didn't really have a seeming overall positive impact to the first line. And we lost the 3rd line being raised from complete suckage. All of this is of course in hindsight -I get why the switch was made with Tolvanen starting the tournament so well.

 

[DoubleGold]

As much as Pokka sucked, it's also absurd to pinpoint the reasons for the loss to him.

I think one of the things that proved to be an error, in hindsight, was swapping Tolvanen and Kapanen. They seemed to have better chemistry with their original lines and Tolvanen elevated the play of the 3rd line whereas he didn't really have a seeming overall positive impact to the first line. And we lost the 3rd line being raised from complete suckage. All of this is of course in hindsight -I get why the switch was made with Tolvanen starting the tournament so well.

No one is saying that Pokka is the sole reason we lost, but he was one of the major flaws. Honestly I'm amazed at how bad he is and the amount of ice time given to him is ridiculous. I'm sure Heiskanen struggled due to him.

 

[DoubleGold]

What's with Teräväinen too? His quality decreased exponentially towards the end of the tournament. Could be exhaustion, Marjamäki should've given more even minutes from the start.

 

[Mestaruus]

Did it occur to you that it might be the job of the coach to wake up the players and extract the maximum out of them?

I'm glad things will change on that department. This was an issue almost the entire time during the Marjamäki era. This tournament we saw it often in second periods and against the contender countries like GER, DEN, SUI.

Jukka Jalonen is a pretty good psychological coach. Doesn't he even have a professional degree of some sort in psychology or something like that or was it someone else?

My dream assistant coaches for Jukka Jalonen, if I have to select two are Kivi and Duhva. Both are good at many things but Kivi has a good understanding of the game and Duhva can focus more on psyching the players up, plus he was an assistant coach of JJ for the 2011 gold team.

 

[Periwinkle]

No one is saying that Pokka is the sole reason we lost, but he was one of the major flaws. Honestly I'm amazed at how bad he is and the amount of ice time given to him is ridiculous. I'm sure Heiskanen struggled due to him.

I guess the point I was making was that even with all the Marjamäki hate there are few concrete things that posters are giving as reasons why he is to blame. Which relates to my point that reducing this sorry game to "Marjamäki sucks" is lazy.

Again, I'm not "defending" Marjamäki. There are many aspects that warrant criticism, starting with some player selectiobs, including a lack of centers. But at its best the active playing style, when we got it on, was some of the most entertaining hockey I've seen from a Team Finland in...as long as I can remember. So it wasn't all bad.

But the team today for the first two periods was just pathetic. Knowing how they can play, as we've seen, it was disgusting to watch. In my eyes the players shit the bed on this one. Again, I didn't watch the third so I can't comment on that.

 

[Mestaruus]

I hope that Granlund never has to be center again in the NT. It was such a waste of potential. Granlund did well as center but he could be so much more on the wing. Now we didn't see the best of Granlund in the most important game of the tournament and that's what it should be about. Marjamäki could've chosen at least one more pure center to the team and also maybe let Niemi play with Anttila. Maybe put Pesonen or Suomela to center Granlund and Rantanen.

 

[DoubleGold]

I guess the point I was making was that even with all the Marjamäki hate there are few concrete things that posters are giving as reasons why he is to blame. Which relates to my point that reducing this sorry game to "Marjamäki sucks" is lazy.

Again, I'm not "defending" Marjamäki. There are many aspects that warrant criticism, starting with some player selectiobs, including a lack of centers. But at its best the active playing style, when we got it on, was some of the most entertaining hockey I've seen from a Team Finland in...as long as I can remember. So it wasn't all bad.

But the team today for the first two periods was just pathetic. Knowing how they can play, as we've seen, it was disgusting to watch. In my eyes the players **** the bed on this one. Again, I didn't watch the third so I can't comment on that.

Marjamäki wasn't able to produce but yes, he was able to make the team play fast and exciting hockey in his final tournament. I think this is what we all want and I'll give him credit for having the courage to adapt. The way we played when we were at our best is something we absolutely need to do in upcoming tournaments, otherwise our best players are a waste. Even Laine has openly critiqued the boring trap hockey that's played in Liiga and was a common sight in the national team - he isn't interested.

I'm sure that the teams downfall is a culmination of many things - but Marjamäki and his actions are the main reasons why. He only started giving more even minutes in the game against USA, that's way too late, the first two lines were gassed and the last two hadn't mustered enough experience.