WJC: Team Finland 2018 U20 WJC Roster Talk

[Razamanaz]

.

 

[Razamanaz]

... only jokin' folks!

 

[DaJackal]

you guys need to relax. the finnish team is not dominant but it is in the mix and good enough to beat any team in the tournament on a good night.

This. The team has made quite a lot of mistakes, key players have been in scoring problems and goaltending has been shaky. Still they have put on a good fight against top teams.

I have faith in this team. Finland almost always has trouble to get going (especially if they are strong on paper) but improves drastically when the tough games begin. If our top 6 can get it going, Tolvanen manages to calibrate his shot on the PP and Luukkonen improves (and these are not especially huge ifs), our team has a legit shot at gold. USA and Canada have looked better so far, but not simply dominant.

Also, Ahokas and his selections have been fine to me. Kotkaniemi has looked good in FEL but nobody can say how his game would have translated to NA ice. This adaptation is a bigger issue for centers than wingers, IMO. I would have liked to see him in the team, though, but I understand the decision.

 

[Statsy]

This. The team has made quite a lot of mistakes, key players have been in scoring problems and goaltending has been shaky. Still they have put on a good fight against top teams.

I have faith in this team. Finland almost always has trouble to get going (especially if they are strong on paper) but improves drastically when the tough games begin. If our top 6 can get it going, Tolvanen manages to calibrate his shot on the PP and Luukkonen improves (and these are not especially huge ifs), our team has a legit shot at gold. USA and Canada have looked better so far, but not simply dominant.

Also, Ahokas and his selections have been fine to me. Kotkaniemi has looked good in FEL but nobody can say how his game would have translated to NA ice. This adaptation is a bigger issue for centers than wingers, IMO. I would have liked to see him in the team, though, but I understand the decision.

I honestly think you hit the nail on the head about Tolvanen's shot. He connected with one last game but has just missed on soooo many others. As he goes, so goes the powerplay, and we all know that to win these games you have to score with the man advantage. Hopefully he's got it dialled in next game.

 

[behemolari]

No matter the final score in Tueday's game.
Ahokas was wrong selection to U20 head coach and he should be resign after the tournament.

I think it's time to try Canadian or American head coach in Finland's U20 team.
We have to fix all those issues what he had adjusting with North American ice surface.
And north american coach is best option to do those fixes.

as long as we are playing with a different rink there is no fix, on the other hand gives us a change every other year

 

[behemolari]

Ha, I asked earlier what's going to happen if/when USA scores 5 goals against us and got the answer slammed right back at me. Even Tolvanen's great performance wasn't enough to save us.

Ahokas was the wrong choice as the head coach (if there ever even was any better candidates on the table) as he started a sequence of events leading up to where we are now. The team was badly built using/adapting old school methods while hoping they would somehow work in the NA rinks. Leaving out skill centers like Kotkaniemi and Somppi - when anyone could see that centering was going to be the weakest link from the get go - was the worst mistake in that design. Of course there was little reason to expect Kuokkanen to turnout such as disappointment considering he nearly made Carolina's opening roster and having the experience on his side. To turn out this useless that he hasn't been able to deliver anything at top six level in the WJC has nevertheless been a surprise. Ahokas made a few right calls with first being dropping Kuokkanen out of 1st line and second, promoting Kupari back in the lineup. Too bad Kupari didn't really have any offensively capable players to work with yesterday. Ahokas "compensated" those good calls with more bad calls with letting Kuokkanen on the ice when USA scored the last goal and leaving him on the ice when we desperately needed an equaliser. Just before the 5-4 goal with ~3mins on the clock I actually told my gf that if this guy is on the ice, we won't see overtime, which is exactly what happened. Think he lost his battle behind USA's goal and well, the rest is now history. Naturally you can't blame the failure on one player but I think he is just the pinnacle of the definition in our case. So far there hasn't been many who have delivered.

Of course the tournament isn't over yet but I wouldn't get my hopes up too high. The team Finland is living prove of having a commanding blueline means very little if your strategy and other pieces aren't in place. We've seen that whenever playing on the small ice, it would be beneficial to have some sort of advisers behind the bench/scenes working with the (Finnish) coach to overcome the small ice transition problems.

Perfectly put, there is absolutely no reason to wait miracles happen. Ahokas is par there with Helminen

 

[JJTT]

Can we pick the best players next year? Hopefully Ahokas and liitto learned a lesson here.

 

[kunekune]

Before the tournament I wrote that both Ahokas and Luukkonen are in wrong place - and I was right. What a shame.

 

[vaiski]

The fundamentals of a good game plan were there for Finland all tournament long but finishing was absolute dogshit and UPL was very shaky. Watching this team just made me frustrated.

 

[Asiantuntija]

Before the tournament I wrote that both Ahokas and Luukkonen are in wrong place - and I was right. What a shame.

Yes absolutely. This competition was just too much for Ukko.

 

[rduck1]

Quite telling that Koppanen and Räsänen ended up the leading goal-scorers for this team. The guys whose job it was to put the puck in the net never quite showed up. Kuokkanen ended up with zero goals, Tolvanen had a grand total of one.

 

[kelsier]

What a fiasco. The decisions by Ahokas in the game where breathtaking say the least. Played players over and over who had contributed pretty much nothing throughout the tournament. Letting Kuokkanen shoot a shootout was just the icing on the cake.

 

[Past Considerations]

A well deserved loss.

I hope Ahokas gets a 2nd year. Maybe his inexperience showed a bit. The alternative would be... who? Some Rindell/Helminen-like "suojatyöpaikka" again? I think we've seen where that route leads to.

 

[ChicagoBullsFan]

Fire that moron Ahokas and hire a coach who knows small rink hockey ( North American).
All time U20 Team Finland what a f***ing joke.

 

[rduck1]

A well deserved loss.

I hope Ahokas gets a 2nd year. The alternative would be... who? Some Rindell/Helminen-like "suojatyöpaikka" again? I think we've seen that route again.

Should be another year for Ahokas. Though it's not a great result by any stretch, making top-8 in North America is not a disaster... (Though it seems they're planning to keep it on the small ice from here to infinity now, so I guess it's a goodbye to medals for us )

 

[kunekune]

A well deserved loss.

I hope Ahokas gets a 2nd year. The alternative would be... who? Some Rindell/Helminen-like "suojatyöpaikka" again? I think we've seen where that route leads to.

Even I would have coached that team to better results than Ahokas.

It's certain that he needs to find a new job and that ain't going to be easy.

Maybe some Mestis team will give a chance.

 

[JJTT]

Very different look next year, assuming no Tolvanen or Heiskanen either:

Vesalainen-Ikonen-Ylönen
Heponiemi-Kotkaniemi-Kupari
Nyman-Talvitie-Pajuniemi?
Moilanen-Virtanen-Engberg?
Koskenkorva?

Vaakanainen-Jokiharju
Utunen?-Räsänen
Kaskinen?-Honka?
Isiguzo?

Luukkonen
Lehtinen

 

[JabbaJabba]

That was pretty pathetic, all that hype and nothing to show for.

 

[Hockeyisl1fe]

The most dissappointing player award goes to Kuokkanen for sure. He literally didn't do anything.

 

[migi]

Wonder if Kuokkanen was still a bit sore of his injury.

 

[ChicagoBullsFan]

A well deserved loss.

I hope Ahokas gets a 2nd year. Maybe his inexperience showed a bit. The alternative would be... who? Some Rindell/Helminen-like "suojatyöpaikka" again? I think we've seen where that route leads to.

How about North American coach who really KNOWS small rink hockey.

 

[ChicagoBullsFan]

Very different look next year, assuming no Tolvanen or Heiskanen either:

Vesalainen-Ikonen-Ylönen
Heponiemi-Kotkaniemi-Kupari
Nyman-Talvitie-Pajuniemi?
Moilanen-Virtanen-Engberg?
Koskenkorva?

Vaakanainen-Jokiharju
Utunen?-Räsänen
Kaskinen?-Honka?
Isiguzo?

Luukkonen
Lehtinen

Add Nordgren and Nevasaari on that group

 

[jvr32]

Quite telling that Koppanen and Räsänen ended up the leading goal-scorers for this team. The guys whose job it was to put the puck in the net never quite showed up. Kuokkanen ended up with zero goals, Tolvanen had a grand total of one.

Yup. And those two were the two defensive centers (referring to coach Ahokas) at the the start of the tournament. The secondary scoring unsurprisingly ended up as a big weakness

 

[sadpanda]

The most dissappointing player award goes to Kuokkanen for sure. He literally didn't do anything.

I agree. I don't know how many times the play died on his stick throughout the tournament.. and 0 goals.

 

[FiLe]

Ahokas' contract runs through the next year as well. And frankly, while I can see the emotions are bitter fresh off the loss, this is not a result you sack coaches over.

Ahokas deserves a second chance to show if he learned anything from this. Just like Marjamäki did. And if the early signs are of any indicator, the latter did learn quite a bit. Furthermore, there's no reason to believe Ahokas - who is also still young for a coach - wouldn't.

Though it seems they're planning to keep it on the small ice from here to infinity now, so I guess it's a goodbye to medals for us.

Quite the contrary. The IIHF is in fact moving to an opposite direction. The enthusiasm and attendance towards these games has been on a downward trend in North America for quite a while now. At the same time, the global federation has been greatly impressed by the success stories 2014 and 2016 were (and I mean by attendance and organization, though incidentally they were quite the success stories in other ways as well). They want more of that. Going into the 2020s, you can expect to see these games more often in Europe.

---

Finally, an early look on next year's team...

10 players from this squad are eligible to return, and at least eight probably will. The remaining two - Tolvanen and Heiskanen - are more of question marks. But I'd still say their odds of being full-time NHLers are slimmer than the case was with Laine and Aho, for example. Dallas has plenty of young d-men in their roster and they've no reason to rush Heiskanen anywhere. And it's almost a tradition that Nashville runs most of its prospects, even the highest-end ones, through Milwaukee.

Luukkonen
Lehtinen
---
Mölder

(Heiskanen)
Vaakanainen
Jokiharju
---
Räsänen
Utunen
Honka
Vesterinen
Latvala

(Tolvanen)
Vesalainen
Heponiemi
Ikonen
Kupari
---
Kotkaniemi
Nyman
Moilanen
Talvitie
Ylönen
Koskenkorva
Virtanen
Kulmala
Pajuniemi

That's the group I could see getting picked if they had to name the roster right now. Of course, a lot can happen in a year - and usually does. Regardless, at least 3/4 of that list probably ends up making it. The classes of '99/'00 aren't as deep as groups from '96 to '98 were. A step down from this year on paper, sure, but still a decent-looking group.

 

[ChicagoBullsFan]

Should be another year for Ahokas. Though it's not a great result by any stretch, making top-8 in North America is not a disaster... (Though it seems they're planning to keep it on the small ice from here to infinity now, so I guess it's a goodbye to medals for us )

If i was in charge in Finnish hockey association Ahokas would be immediately fired when team is back in Helsinki.
Finland needs a U20 coach ( Bob Motzko etc) WHO KNOWS NORTH AMERICAN SMALL RINK HOCKEY.