Finland might have caught up with Sweden in some ways and maybe even surpassed you guys in some areas in hockey, but altogether Sweden is still ahead.
Sweden has more of clear NHL class players. Also the Swedish defencemen are altogether quite clearly better, although it seems that the Finns might be catching up gradually. But anyway the difference is quite clear at the moment.
Sweden has also more of the clear NHL class goalies, but with the top goalies I think it is pretty even between the Swedes and the Finns.
The only areas that Finland already beats the Swedes with are the coaching and the top end forwards. I’m pretty sure that Jalonen beats any Swedish coach that is in the pipeline at the moment, and his upcoming adjutants, Pennanen and Manner, are extremely talented and smart coaches. Especially Pennanen seems like a younger and maybe even more efficient version of Jalonen. An extremely promising top class coach in the pipeline.
It was said already that both, Pennanen and Manner had as the assisting coaches already in this WHC tournament an important role in making the Finnish system work as well as it eventually did. Of course Jalonen was the main man, but he also used his assisting guys efficiently as very good help, and got also some nice finishing touch to his ideas of the best working system from these assisting young promising coaches.
Also Finland has better top forwards than Sweden already, but I’m not sure if the difference is really that big after all. And with you guys having already kids like Raymond and Holtz in the pipeline, it could be even you having the advantage again quite soon with your forwards. Of course Finland does have also very promising young forwards like Lundell and Räty, but honestly they were that much weaker than Raymond and Holtz in the U18 WHC tournament, that at least right now it looks quite much better for Sweden, with that age group’s forwards.
Oh, and you Swedish lucky bastards have Pettersson, whom I see as the most talented Nordic player at the moment. He is also one of (if not THE) the most talented players in the world. The guy has insane hockey IQ and hands, and he has even a crazy shot! And he is already so bloody good, while he is clearly a completely physically raw player. What the hell will he become when he gets clearly more strength and even more of explosiveness? He is a Nordic talent that might be surpassed only by Raymond during the upcoming years.