With the lack of work ethic and total laziness he exhibited in the games against the Swiss and the Czechs, J. Jalonen won't even fart his way unless he bends it like Teemu this spring in the league. Even then it's far from a certainty.
WJC: Roster Talk '13 — Finland
- Thread starter Huokaus
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With the lack of work ethic and total laziness he exhibited in the games against the Swiss and the Czechs, J. Jalonen won't even fart his way unless he bends it like Teemu this spring in the league. Even then it's far from a certainty.
Indeed. Armia needs to have a stellar spring to make it. Nothing would delight me more, given how we're badly in need of a bona fide sniper, but in his current state he has the snowflake's chance in hell.
Same here. I have this weird fantasy of our 1st line being MiG- M. Koivu- Armia, but I know it's probably not going to happen. Would be really good for Armia's development.
That one particular game vs SWE was horrible to watch and I almost stopped watching the game which I usually never do. If we talk of first periods which were all poor pretty much, Raipe's team did those better vs the expectations. That's mainly what i meant by fluctuating.
Then about the 1-8 loss to Canada. Considering what the expectations were before the game, maybe something like 1-4, 1-5 losses would've been acceptable. 1-8 isn't that much different from that so I wouldn't say that's fluctuating. This year it was much different. We were expected to crush opponents like Czech and Switzerland and these games were way more upsetting to me than a 8-5 win against Slovakia last year. Even though CZE and Swiss were expected to be tougher than normally, I expected Finland to crush these teams regardless.
If I had to pick one forward from this U-20 that would play in the WC this year it would be Teuvo as well. He'll get a chance in EHT for sure, but I got a feeling he wont impress Jalonen enough there and wont make the team.
I want Armia to have few years of AHL before he gets to play in WC. Wonder if Jalonen gives Armia a chance in EHT this year? My guess is not, because own end is leaking too much when he's playing and few years of international experience in AHL might fix his discipline as well.
Honestly, I don't think anyone from this team will play in the WC this year. Assuming we will barely get any NHLers, some younger SM-liiga players may be given a chance, but right now I see Pulkkinen getting the nod rather than TT. He's been on fire lately and IIRC he nearly made the team in 2011.
Well, yeah. No one from that team is a lock by any means, but TT might have the closest chance.
Having Pulkkinen make it would be absolutely great as well. I want a scorer type who can find his drive, ride it through the spring to the WHC squad and from there, who knows, Sochi too. Pulkkinen, Armia, Salminen, someone else... I don't care. Don't get me wrong, I don't want anyone given a freebie based on pure potential only, but I will be watching closely if there's a name who's going to rise to the required prominence. None of our current proven guns can't fill the skates that will be left empty by Teemu. Well, I don't think any youngster possibly making it can either, but it would still make me helluva lot more comfortable knowing there's someone in the squad who can snipe from spot and rarely miss.
IMO Pulu punched his ticket in 2011 at least to the final EHT, but for some odd reason Jalonen decided to favor Juuso Puustinen and Janne Lahti instead. The former was in a somewhat nice form even if he did ultimately get cut, but latter was clearly struggling already despite winning the SM-liiga scorer title. Turned out to be useless in the actual show as well, but luckily that time it turned out to be a mispick they were allowed to make.
They did have a few mispicks and free passengers that year despite getting the gold. Pulkkinen couldn't have been less useful than Lahti turned out to be in the end, Aaltonen was awful and the so-called 1st (but more like worst) defensive pairing only survived because they usually played with Koivu. The NT desperately needs fresh blood and players whose development is still ongoing, instead of useless players whose development has sadly ended, like Aaltonen, Pesonen and a bunch of others.
However, J. Jalonen hasn't been very enthusiastic about bringing in young players and has kept on using the same ones over and over again. I expect to see more of the same this spring, but a few young players could possibly make the squad. I'm all in for bringing the kids in, but they need to earn it first. Vatanen and MiG did, let's hope that at least Pulkkinen is able to do the same this year.
Jalonen has his favorites, just like any coach, but IMO while his track record with the issue of trying some fresh blood could be better, it's still actually more pronounced than any of his predecessors'.
Granlund and Vatanen you already mentioned. Then there's also been at least Leo Komarov, Joonas Järvinen, Jani Lajunen and Oskar Osala who Jalonen has brought in as somewhat unproven twentysomethings and given them WHC minutes. The list gets even longer if we're to look at EHT. And while you mention Aaltonen as somebody who could be a drag these days, back then he was hardly the foregone conclusion he might be now, given how he made his major tournament debut at 24 after a very strong showing.
TBH, we haven't seen this many relatively young players break it after Aravirta brought in OJ, Hagman, Niko Kapanen and such in the turn of the millennia, and even those were somewhat proven cases already. Erkka did practically nothing to take any blind chances, he always played it safe. So in that sense, I don't think it's fair to rag against Jalonen for not doing his part in attempts to widen the player pool.
In fact, if you wanna see even more hail mary picks than Jalonen has taken, you'll have to go all the way back to the early 90s when Pentti Matikainen was the coach.
The reason he gets so much flak for it is that the overall quality of the players is worse than it used to be back in Aravirta's times (or even Erkka's latest era). I don't mind favorites, every coach needs players that he feels he can work with, but those favorites have to prove that they're worth it and giving them too many chances over players with more potential is questionable.
I get that Jori Lehterä still has to be given a chance, as he's one of the best offensive KHL centers overall, not just by Finnish standards. However, he's already been given a lot of chances to prove himself worthy, but he's never really delivered in the NT the way he should have but has then gone to back to the KHL and kept on racking up points. It's probably a mental thing- too much pressure because it's the NT or something, but whatever the reason is, with the performances he's given he doesn't deserve many more chances. You'd think that being given so many shots the nervousness would've eased up, but it doesn't look like it. Aaltonen has already been given too many chances IMO. He was supposed to be a goal-scorer, but it's kind of difficult to score goals when you always end up behind the net...
There have been young players in the past who were chosen to the NT but it took a long time before they actually reached their full potential. M. Koivu was first used in EHT in 2003 by Aravirta and since then every coach has taken him along for the ride when he's been available even though his point totals weren't particularly impressive at first. Aravirta said he was most impressed by his mental qualities, which I think is a good enough of a reason to keep him on the team, especially when he was only given a limited role at first and wasn't a liability. Today I don't think there's anyone who can say he's a bad NT player. So I am willing to cut slack to coaches who use young players repeatedly in small roles even though they don't rack up a lot of points.
When we're talking about players in their prime who should only be used in the top6 (like Aaltonen), I'm definitely more critical and not willing to continuously drag them along if they aren't able to deliver. It's great if Lehterä's able to be in the top 10 scorers of the KHL when the season ends, but if he can't bring the same to the NT, he shouldn't be there.
QnebO
Wheel, snipe, celly
- Feb 11, 2010
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Nah, Just bring armia to mens NT, EHT first of course. He will skate, work and do hes magic (goals, dekes). We haveto drive in these youngsters that clearly have potentional and give them chance.. I don mean we haveto make it U20 team, but 1-2 youngsters can just do good for thea team. Some youngsters-attitude is good, the mature players will make sure they work and it doesn't go over.
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