Laakso must be the stupidest player Finland has ever had. Every time I saw him taking a penalty it was clearly his own fault. Those were really taken penalties, not given.
Yes. Like that 2+10 in the Belarus game that wouldn't have been a penalty anywhere else.
Most of his penalties wouldn't have been penalties in the SM-liiga. He always plays like that and doesn't get nearly as much penalties. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that players don't fall down that easily in the SM-liiga. Like Mueller today. Or like the Swiss player that got Laakso the interference call in that game.
I admit, some of his penalties were stupid. Some even taken outside of the play in the neutral zone. And the meltdown today ruined his chances to improve his stats in the last game. But his penalties rarely cost the team anything.
But calling Laakso the stupidest player Finland has ever done is, perhaps ironically, pretty damn ignorant. He was the best defenseman on that team BY FAR. And I'm not talking about his points or his penalty minutes, I'm talking about his defensive play, his consistency and the workload he had to carry and mistakes others made that he had to fix and the amount of mistakes that he didn't make.
He was the only defenseman not making stupid passes in the own zone that led to turnovers. This was the trademark of Lehtivuori, Leinonen, Kurki and especially Seppänen. He had the sense to clear the puck when it needed to be done. He had the most takeaways, he had the least giveaways and he made the least mistakes. But I guess that's really stupid...
EDIT: By the way, Team Finland still has a lot less 2 minute penalties than certain teams last year. If they take 10 penalties in the last game they will match Canada's 63 penalties last year. 11 to match USA... and 19 to match Germany. That's not really important, but I thought I'd point it out.