GDT: Quarterfinal - May 17 - Finland vs Switzerland

maximafinogenov7

Registered User
May 10, 2018
29
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No.
Take a look at the last 5 years and you'll see which direction this is going in.

We beat them 4 times in a row, more success in WC, Olympics, more NHL players, better NHL player, more and higher draft picks...
Sorry, but a single Junior tourney 3 years ago doesn't make Slovakia a better hockey nation.

But you beat them only once in history(WC,OG) and it was this year. I dont count a friend matches. Regarding these NHL players, Sweden have about 50 players more than Russia in NHL, but I couldnt see them better, so its irrelevant fact. Nevertheless, I get it.

In Juniors, you are still beaten by them. There are still more successful and no matter how many higher draft picks you have. Although, Switzerland have very strong generation in 96, 97, but even they couldnt defeat the Slovaks regularly. Now, I see a power in slovakian 99s, which I think beat SUI team with Hischier in U18 and help defeat strong USA team this year in U20, too.

Anyway, Its really hard say who is better. Slovakia or Switzerland. Next years definitely show us.

Btw, I still envy Swiss their LB in football - Ricardo Rodriguez(AC Milan). :)
 
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teravaineSAROS

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Jul 29, 2015
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Swedish commentary said Marjamäki overused the key players throughout the tournament causing them to be fatigued now
 

teravaineSAROS

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Jul 29, 2015
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Bulldoody as usual. Only Pokka was overused.

Alright, Finland seemed so unmotivated so I was wondering if it was mostly fatigue.

As much as I want to like Pokka as he comes from a small town in Lapland where much of my close family is from... He just has no place on the national team.
 

Ippenator

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Jan 6, 2016
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I agree with Finland being better than Sweden at the U20 level these days but with regards to the IIHF U18 its wise to note that not every country can send its best to that tournament, particularly Canada because our junior leagues have not concluded their seasons and thus we cannot release our best u-18 players so I wouldn't take the IIHF U18 results too seriously. Canada only sends its best U18 players to the Ivan Hlinka, now known as the Hlinka Gretzky Cup. Hlinka Gretzky Cup - Wikipedia
This definitely applies to Canada, but not that much to USA. USA had a very good team with their best players in the tournament, but still Finland managed to beat them. So I do think that the U18 still tells a lot about other countries, although not maybe so much about Canada though.
 

Eternalize

Registered User
Nov 8, 2013
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One thing that you don’t seem to realize is that Finland has had for the men’s team during the last two years the absolutely worst coach we have ever had during the modern hockey era. So you can’t make too much realistic estimations of the level of our best hockey at the moment from how the national team is doing.

When I knew two years ago that Marjamäki will be the next coach I was already absolutely sure that things will be going in the way as they have gone for the last two years. Everything went in fact picture perfectly as I had visioned already then. A disaster of a coach in motivating and bringing the much needed leadership to the young teams that he was now coaching.

The development of Finnish hockey at men’s level could be though seen very well through how many players from our last two gold winning U20 teams have already become good NHL’rs and some more are at least close to being there already.

Laine, Aho, Rantanen, Teräväinen, Lindell, Ristolainen, Kapanen, Lehkonen, Saros are all already very good or good NHL’rs. And close there are Puljujärvi, Niku (defenceman of the year in AHL), Honka, Juolevi, Saarela and Husso, maybe even Hintz. Also just now from those gold medal teams have Saku Mäenalanen and Kaapo Kähkönen signed NHL deals. So I don’t really see many of them after all failing at least so far.
Im sorry but blaming it just on coaches is a bad excuse. No nation is having Scotty Bowman behind the bench here. Yes a coach could make or break you, not going to speculate whether another coach would be better or worse for Finland. Sweden have Grönborg who is hardly a great coach. The good thing about him is that the NHL players seems to like him, which results in them usually going to the Worlds if they can. This is obviously a great trait, but it doesn't really make him a great coach. Prior to that, you had Pär Mårts who was pretty much the exact opposite, along with him not being the best of coaches. Most NHLers declined as soon as they were asked about the Worlds. He still managed to win a gold medal during his time, along with a bronze and 2 silver medals (1 from the Olympics).

I mean if we are gonna make this about coaches, there's gonna be a lot of "what ifs", and you could blame any nations results on just coaching, you are hardly alone here. Im sure Sweden could have won more gold medals at the WJC during this 10 year period if they had a specific type of coach, but they didn't. That's the reality and there's no reason to dwell on it or make any excuses.

As for all of these guys making it, it's a matter of making the 1st step, then continuing on the same path. A lot of players are able to make the 1st step, but then fail to make the next. Look at someone like Pääjärvi who went 9th overall. He made the NHL in his 2nd year, had a pretty good rookie year. After that he stagnated. That 1st NHL season of his is still his best to date. And this is a guy who i personally held pretty high in terms of talent. Thought for sure that he would make the NHL and be a great player. Same goes for Markström, he was considered the best goalie prospect in the world and a sure fire superstar. He made the NHL in the end, but never reached that superstar status. I mean i could go on and on, if you are expecting things to turn out as amazing as you're putting it, you're gonna set yourself up for a disappointment.

There's also a big skill gap between the guys you're mentioning, like Laine and Kapanen. Kapanen hasn't really done anything special at the NHL level yet. Meanwhile, Laine should be considered one of the best goalscorers in the league. Im sorry, but it's a little hard to take your list of players seriously when you're pretty much mentioning every single decent finnish player being born. Again, there's obviously some great players and talents that you mentioned. Sweden have loads of Kapanens who i would never consider mentioning if i was gonna put together a serious list of the best young swedish players.
 

Slimmy

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Jan 3, 2009
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Thank you Switzerland. We are now bound together as one soul through time and space in eternity.
 
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Ippenator

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Jan 6, 2016
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Im sorry but blaming it just on coaches is a bad excuse. No nation is having Scotty Bowman behind the bench here. Yes a coach could make or break you, not going to speculate whether another coach would be better or worse for Finland. Sweden have Grönborg who is hardly a great coach. The good thing about him is that the NHL players seems to like him, which results in them usually going to the Worlds if they can. This is obviously a great trait, but it doesn't really make him a great coach. Prior to that, you had Pär Mårts who was pretty much the exact opposite, along with him not being the best of coaches. Most NHLers declined as soon as they were asked about the Worlds. He still managed to win a gold medal during his time, along with a bronze and 2 silver medals (1 from the Olympics).

I mean if we are gonna make this about coaches, there's gonna be a lot of "what ifs", and you could blame any nations results on just coaching, you are hardly alone here. Im sure Sweden could have won more gold medals at the WJC during this 10 year period if they had a specific type of coach, but they didn't. That's the reality and there's no reason to dwell on it or make any excuses.

As for all of these guys making it, it's a matter of making the 1st step, then continuing on the same path. A lot of players are able to make the 1st step, but then fail to make the next. Look at someone like Pääjärvi who went 9th overall. He made the NHL in his 2nd year, had a pretty good rookie year. After that he stagnated. That 1st NHL season of his is still his best to date. And this is a guy who i personally held pretty high in terms of talent. Thought for sure that he would make the NHL and be a great player. Same goes for Markström, he was considered the best goalie prospect in the world and a sure fire superstar. He made the NHL in the end, but never reached that superstar status. I mean i could go on and on, if you are expecting things to turn out as amazing as you're putting it, you're gonna set yourself up for a disappointment.

There's also a big skill gap between the guys you're mentioning, like Laine and Kapanen. Kapanen hasn't really done anything special at the NHL level yet. Meanwhile, Laine should be considered one of the best goalscorers in the league. Im sorry, but it's a little hard to take your list of players seriously when you're pretty much mentioning every single decent finnish player being born. Again, there's obviously some great players and talents that you mentioned. Sweden have loads of Kapanens who i would never consider mentioning if i was gonna put together a serious list of the best young swedish players.
You don’t seem to get the points really. We are not talking about whatever Finnish coach, but really the clearly worst coach that Finland has ever had in the modern times of hockey. A really bad coach for this level. We have never before seen anything like him seriously.

Also, the list of players I presented were mostly just about the players that won those U20 gold medals. I’m not saying that Kapanen for example is a great player, and that there can’t be many of his kind of players in the NHL. But he is a good NHL’er in his role, which is mostly a speedy grinder for the 3rd or 4th line. But in that role he is in fact already pretty darn good. Most probably he will never be a top 6 player, but it still doesn’t mean that he isn’t a pretty good NHLer, at least in his role. He is also one of the fastest players in the NHL, so honestly I don’t believe that Sweden has really that many of his kind of players exactly. Skillwise for sure, but not for the role as a very speedy grinder.

My point was still that the U20 gold teams have been able to already produce many great or good NHLers for different kind of roles. And none of them are even at their prime yet. Most of them not even close to it yet.
 
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Eternalize

Registered User
Nov 8, 2013
340
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Sweden
You don’t seem to get the points really. We are not talking about whatever Finnish coach, but really the clearly worst coach that Finland has ever had in the modern times of hockey. A really bad coach for this level. We have never before seen anything like him seriously.

Also, the list of players I presented were mostly just about the players that won those U20 gold medals. I’m not saying that Kapanen for example is a great player, and that there can’t be many of his kind of players in the NHL. But he is a good NHL’er in his role, which is mostly a speedy grinder for the 3rd or 4th line. But in that role he is in fact already pretty darn good. Most probably he will never be a top 6 player, but it still doesn’t mean that he isn’t a pretty good NHLer, at least in his role. He is also one of the fastest players in the NHL, so honestly I don’t believe that Sweden has really that many of his kind of players exactly. Skillwise for sure, but not for the role as a very speedy grinder.

My point was still that the U20 gold teams have been able to already produce many great or good NHLers for different kind of roles. And none of them are even at their prime yet. Most of them not even close to it yet.
The post you quoted prior to this one literally had nothing to do with senior hockey at all. It was all about junior hockey, yet you go on talking about something about coaches at the A-level and how im not getting it. What?

Are you gonna tell me that the guy who coached the team that completely embarassed both Canada and USA is the worst coach of the modern era? Lol ok. Has this always been the case for Finland, since you didn't win too much prior to him either? I've never once said that your coach is great and that he couldn't be part of the problem, you're awfully good at putting words in peoples mouths. You're responding to things i never even said. Please read more carefully.

It's all about producing no matter if you're a top6er or a 3rd liner. Kapanen isn't producing at either of these levels right now. If Kempe is considered a 3rd liner, then i would easily take him on my 3rd line over Kapanen, ainec. Speed alone isn't going to make you a great player if you believe that. It's hard to take you seriously if we're gonna start glorifying 3rd or even 4th liners here. A great national team have 2nd or even 1st liners playing 3rd line minutes. Not Kasperi Kapanens.

Im mostly just hearing excuses and wishful thinking from you. I don't see the point at all talking about how a future finnish team could look. As i have already said, there's a bunch of really talented finnish players. That's all we know. There's no reason to talk like everything is set and stone and that you are heading into world domination. A lot of the players you are mentioning have never even played 1 game in the NHL. Get off your high horse and start being a little more realistic rather than optimistic, for your own sake.
 
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Sanf

Registered User
Sep 8, 2012
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Congratulations to Switzerland. Good game from them.

................
And sorry about OT, but what is exactly the weak junior years from Sweden? We are far behind Sweden when talking about depth on talent. In defence it´s most drastic. Even in this yeat Central scouting has 4 Swedish D in top 10 of Euro skaters Dahlin being the biggest star. No Finnish D´s in top 30. Finland had strong group last year, but still Sweden had 2 first rounders and two second.

We still can pretty easily name our top talents. What will be the ratio of them reaching their "upside". I agree that this talk does "set up for a disappointment" We can already see the strong counter reactions if the players doesn´t reach their hoped level.

Few years ago we hit the rock bottom. Four somewhat regular NHL dman. To compare five from still youngish Swedish D core got Norris votes for best D in NHL. On the positive side things look heck of lot better than few years ago. But hard to see us catching up.
 

maximafinogenov7

Registered User
May 10, 2018
29
7

You are sooo self-important. Swiss win one game with Finland(strong average teams like Denmark and Latvia beat them too this year) and their fans think that they are definitely better than Slovaks and attack Czechs in Top6. Its a ridicilous.
 

BruinLVGA

CZ Shadow 2 Compact coming my way!
Dec 15, 2013
15,187
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Switzerland
You are sooo self-important. Swiss win one game with Finland(strong average teams like Denmark and Latvia beat them too this year) and their fans think that they are definitely better than Slovaks and attack Czechs in Top6. Its a ridicilous.

I think that Switzerland is the 7th best team in the world. Yeah, I think that Switzerland is better - by not much, but still better - than Slovakia. And I think that Switzerland on any given game has a chance at beating any team out there. For the moment, I am very happy about that.
 

Urbanskog

Platinum Member
Feb 8, 2014
3,551
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Helsinki
You are sooo self-important. Swiss win one game with Finland(strong average teams like Denmark and Latvia beat them too this year) and their fans think that they are definitely better than Slovaks and attack Czechs in Top6. Its a ridicilous.
You're thinking of Germany. Finland slaughtered Latvia 8:1.
 

alce

Registered User
Sep 29, 2017
37
11
Switzerland is definitely better than Slovakia now, but i dont think it will last long

I agree. It's not Schweiz that Slovakia should worry about. That train is gone for good. It would be Deutschland that probably takes Slovakia place in top 8 in next decade.
 

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