Finnish - team vs. Finnish + team

[agent082]

Which finnish team you would rather take?

Minus team

Patrik Laine (-18) - Aleksander Barkov (-9) - Mikael Granlund (-6)
Miro Heiskanen (-10) - Rasmus Ristolainen (-42)

Total +/-: -85

Plus team

Teuvo Teräväinen (+27) - Sebastian Aho (+24) - Mikko Rantanen (+13)
Esa Lindell (+13) - Markus Nutivaara (+4)

Total +/-: +81

Click to read more...

 

[Khomutov]

Minus team

 

[Plural]

- team easily.

 

[JoVel]

Minus team and it's not exactly close.

 

[Nick Hansen]

Ristolainen is -144 for his career as of now. Is there any one worse in the league currently playing?

 

[ijuka]

Assuming right now, I'd pick Plus team. The defense's a lot better and I don't think that the offense's that much worse, Granlund is the weakest player by far, but Laine's slumping too.

 

[Crocoduck]

Ristolainen is -144 for his career as of now. Is there any one worse in the league currently playing?

I could be wrong, but if I'm remembering correctly, Jack Johnson's is way worse.

Edit: nope, he's only a -115, Risto has him beat.

 

[Nick Hansen]

I could be wrong, but if I'm remembering correctly, Jack Johnson's is way worse.

Edit: nope, he's only a -115, Risto has him beat.

Sam Gagner is also -115. Then it is Kovalchuk on -142. Ristolainen is the worst out of all active players. Ouch.

 

[SotasicA]

There aren't many good d-men coming out of Finland anymore. They need to look at how Sweden does it.

 

[ijuka]

There aren't many good d-men coming out of Finland anymore. They need to look at how Sweden does it.

Anymore? There never have been. Finland's best defensemen are... Kimmo Timonen, Teppo Numminen? And Reijo Ruotsalainen if you want to go waaaaay back. Nothing special. Miro Heiskanen certainly has the potential to outdo all of those names. I think that Ville Heinola also is quite promising, but not on the same level. But there still are no super star defensemen.

I think that Finland's junior development is to blame for this. While Finland's taken great strides with forwards, the philosophy for defensemen is still too conservative. The players in minors aren't allowed to take enough risks, which means that they just don't develop the skill necessary to be true world-class defenseman. Finland has extremely few highly skilled defensemen, and the ones with tons of potential(Say Anttoni Honka) get aggressively dumped on for their defensive mistakes, which will likely end up in a case such as him not being able to reach their full potential. It's a shame Finland would succumb to such a short-sighted approach for defensemen.

Until the age group born in 2004, I don't see any defensemen with potential for stardom either, though the 2004-age group needs to be evaluated further because there could be something there.

 

[Albatros]

Anymore? There never have been. Finland's best defensemen are... Kimmo Timonen, Teppo Numminen? And Reijo Ruotsalainen if you want to go waaaaay back. Nothing special.

If you go back to Ruotsalainen you'll actually find very strong showing by Finnish D-men especially offensively.

1981/82 points per game and position in the league:

1.00 Siltanen (7th)
0.85 Rautakallio (11th)
0.72 Ruotsalainen (20th)
0.65 Levo (27th)
0.42 Eloranta (64th)
0.27 Blomqvist (99th)

Six Finns among the top 100. Other Europeans consisted only of four Swedes, the best of whom was 14th (Salming).

 

[SotasicA]

Finns rely on their goalies.

I think that was the theory on French-Canadian goalies. Since the QMJHL generally had teams with bad defenses, their goalies developed to be better.

 

[VoluntaryDom]

Which finnish team you would rather take?

Minus team

Patrik Laine (-18) - Aleksander Barkov (-9) - Mikael Granlund (-6)
Miro Heiskanen (-10) - Rasmus Ristolainen (-42)

Total +/-: -85

Plus team

Teuvo Teräväinen (+27) - Sebastian Aho (+24) - Mikko Rantanen (+13)
Esa Lindell (+13) - Markus Nutivaara (+4)

Total +/-: +81

Teravainen vs Granlund: hard to say. Would have said Granlund but he’s struggled hard in Nashville thus far. I’ll probably still go with him tho.
Aho vs Barkov: Aho
Rantanen vs Laine: lol is neither a choice? Both overrated af but gimme Rantanen
Nutivaara vs Heiskanen: for now gimme Markus
Lindell vs Risto: Lindell

Plus team

 

[780il]

Laine =< Teuvo
Barkov > Aho
Granlund << Rantanen

Heiskanen >> Lindell
Risto < Nutivaara

Give me team -
Heiskanen has massive potential and Laine can bounce back.

 

[McCullogh]

Wow, Finland has so many interesting young players I have to admit even as a swede.

I picked Team Plus but I suspect I am in the minority with that. I just have a huge mancrush on Sebastian Aho which probably tipped the scale for the plussers for me.

 

[Conspiracy Theorist]

^ why plus-minus is a useless stat.

 

[FLpanthers16]

Teravainen vs Granlund: hard to say. Would have said Granlund but he’s struggled hard in Nashville thus far. I’ll probably still go with him tho.
Aho vs Barkov: Aho
Rantanen vs Laine: lol is neither a choice? Both overrated af but gimme Rantanen
Nutivaara vs Heiskanen: for now gimme Markus
Lindell vs Risto: Lindell

Plus team

Aho over Barkov??

 

[A91]

Rantanen = Barkov > Aho > Laine > Granlund > TT

Heiskanen > Lindell > Nutivaara > Risto

This season and probably next I take team + as i'm really high on Rants and Aho
Going forward I think team - is the better bet though

 

[JustinCase]

minus easily. Barkov is the best of the bunch.

 

[ViD]

Ristolainen is -144 for his career as of now. Is there any one worse in the league currently playing?

Jack Johnson?

 

[Leafsrock95]

I’d take the plus team pretty easily. Forwards make it easy choice.

 

[Kcb12345]

Jack Johnson?

Is a -114

 

[Pay Carl]

Anymore? There never have been. Finland's best defensemen are... Kimmo Timonen, Teppo Numminen? And Reijo Ruotsalainen if you want to go waaaaay back. Nothing special. Miro Heiskanen certainly has the potential to outdo all of those names. I think that Ville Heinola also is quite promising, but not on the same level. But there still are no super star defensemen.

I think that Finland's junior development is to blame for this. While Finland's taken great strides with forwards, the philosophy for defensemen is still too conservative. The players in minors aren't allowed to take enough risks, which means that they just don't develop the skill necessary to be true world-class defenseman. Finland has extremely few highly skilled defensemen, and the ones with tons of potential(Say Anttoni Honka) get aggressively dumped on for their defensive mistakes, which will likely end up in a case such as him not being able to reach their full potential. It's a shame Finland would succumb to such a short-sighted approach for defensemen.

Until the age group born in 2004, I don't see any defensemen with potential for stardom either, though the 2004-age group needs to be evaluated further because there could be something there.

Pitkanen?

 

[HOUSUTON]

Plus because they don't have laine

 

[tony d]

Team Minus.