WJC 2015 - Roster Talk

FiLe

Mr. Know-It-Nothing
Oct 9, 2009
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Since when Lehkonen's been strong? I think he is as weak as they come - but just doesn't know it.
Which means he still has the upside of not shying away from contact. Not the strongest guy out there, but still a far stronger body in a tight place than no body at all.

Only who the **** is this Kalapudas guy??
Seemingly the third best centre available to us. You been living under the rock all autumn? And I don't mean it as you should've have heard of him, but you should be aware that our depth down the middle isn't the greatest ATM. So to have a relative nobody popping up there should not come as a shock.
 

Needles

Registered User
Jun 29, 2010
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Lehkonen - Saarela - Kapanen
Ikonen - Mustonen - Hintz
Rantanen - Kalapudas - Puljujärvi

Looks pretty good. We should have a strong forward group also in 2016, since six players from that top9 are still available.

Rantanen - Saarela - Kapanen
Aho - Kalapudas - Puljujärvi
Laine - Nättinen - Hintz
 

Tormentor

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Dec 27, 2007
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Too Far
He's certainly creating us a very positive problem for right wing, since we already have Kapanen, Rantanen and Puljujärvi to book for the slot.

Hintz is a centre by training and has played all 3 forward positions this season. Jortikka might see him primarily as a LW/CE considering the abundance of good RW's. He started the previous U20 tournament at wing, but after Vähätalo's early exit he got moved to centre.

Looking at the roster heading to Czech Republic, it's obvious that Mustonen, Kalapudas and Vähätalo are there as centre forwards, but who will be the 4th CE? Saarela seems like the primary candidate, but lately he's been a wing and he also played that position in Lake Placid, so could Hintz be a surprise alternative for CE?

On an unrelated note, Lyytinen played only 4 minutes tonight, hopefully nothing serious.
 

FiLe

Mr. Know-It-Nothing
Oct 9, 2009
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Looking at the roster heading to Czech Republic, it's obvious that Mustonen, Kalapudas and Vähätalo are there as centre forwards, but who will be the 4th CE? Saarela seems like the primary candidate, but lately he's been a wing and he also played that position in Lake Placid, so could Hintz be a surprise alternative for CE?
Worth considering given our shortage of quality centres, but it would break that Hintz-Mustonen connection.


Here's how I'd shape up the whole team ATM...

Saros (Husso)

Lintuniemi - Honka
Tuulola - Lyytinen
Ilvonen - Mäkinen
Levo - Mäkelä

Lehkonen - Saarela - Kapanen
Ikonen - Mustonen - Hintz
Rantanen - Kalapudas - Puljujärvi
Lammikko - Vähätalo - Ojamäki

+ Kähkönen, Rauhala, Aho
 

JJTT

Registered User
Jan 18, 2013
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Oulu
I kinda like the idea with Hintz at center, he brings that much needed size for the center position. He and Lehkonen seemed to have some chemistry while playing together in Sweden. Maybe put Ikonen in there, as he has played with Lehkonen a lot:

Lehkonen-Hintz-Ikonen



Mustonen and Kapanen played well together in Lake Placid. Rantanen on LW brings a big body and playmaking ability:

Rantanen-Mustonen-Kapanen



Moving Hintz to center allows Saarela to be #3c which is more suited for him. Lammikko and Puljujärvi as wingers greates some nice scoring depth:

Lammikko-Saarela-Puljujärvi



4th line will be the grinding line

Vähätalo-Rauhala-Ojamäki


Kalapudas or Kinnunen as extra forward.
 

Tampahali

Registered User
Jan 4, 2014
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I think Rantanen prefers the RW, but considering the amount of right handed wingers, he probably has to play LW?
And the curious case of Vähätalo, he hasn't been nearly as good as last season. Don't know if the concussion in the preseason is the reason for that. Lämsä has outplayed him for the 4th line center position and in my eyes he should be considered for that role also in the WJC.
Since Vähätalo isn't getting any playing time in TPS, hopefully he gets loaned to Tuto.
 

FiLe

Mr. Know-It-Nothing
Oct 9, 2009
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I think Rantanen prefers the RW, but considering the amount of right handed wingers, he probably has to play LW?
I think out of our projected top-9 wingers, only Lehkonen prefers the LW. So at least two of them will have to play on their off wing. I think Kapanen is a lock for his preferred slot and it'd make little sense to place Puljujärvi on the left either.

Hintz/Saarela, Ikonen and Rantanen should be more adaptible, so it's between them three (and Jortsu) to sort out who plays where.


What comes to the forward lines as a whole and the status of Vähätalo and other hopefuls, looks like the team picked now is pretty much Jortikka's first choice ATM - save for perhaps Lammikko. If the not-locked cases play well, they've taken huge strides towards the final team despite of possible fluctuations in their club team status. We'll be wiser after the NT break is over.
 

Phenomenon

Registered User
Jun 10, 2006
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Mustonen had good chemistry with Kapanen earlier so there are many positive options in planning the lineup. I would not, however brake the Ilves duo. At the moment my attack trios would be:

Ikonen - Saarela - Kapanen
Lehkonen - Mustonen - Hintz
Rantanen - Kalapudas - Puljujärvi
Lammikko - Vähätalo - Rauhala
 

JJTT

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Jan 18, 2013
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Tuulola, Kapanen, Lyytinen and Vähätalo out. Björninen, Rauhala, Eronen and Kuronen in for the Czech tournament.
 
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FiLe

Mr. Know-It-Nothing
Oct 9, 2009
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Tuulola out for 4-6 weeks.
Not too long as far as the tournament itself is concerned, but he won't be playing any Liiga games before that.

I guess he'll head overseas with the team and suit up for whatever preliminary games scheduled for 'em. If he seems out of step, they'll replace him with someone else.
 

JJTT

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Jan 18, 2013
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3 tight losses from the 4 nation's cup.

Lineup in the final 2 games:

Hintz-Mustonen-Ikonen
Lehkonen-Björninen-Rantanen
Aho-Kalapudas-Puljujärvi
Saarela-Rauhala-Ojamäki

Niku-Mäkinen
Levo-Vuorisalo
Mäkelä-Eronen
Keskitalo-Kuronen

Hintz-Mustonen-Ikonen line played well and looks like it could be a potential line for WJC. Hintz was out best player in these games.

Rantanen, Björninen and Lehkonen didn't do anything. Expected a lot more from Lehkonen and Rantanen. Björninen was decent 2 way center.

Aho, Kalapudas, Puljujärvi, some flashes of nice play with 2 goals in the tournament but some awful defensive lapses. I don't see Aho or Kalapudas making it, Puljujärvi seems to always be the one carrying that line.

Saarela-Rauhala-Ojamäki

- Ojamäki played really well with 2 goals and nice work on PK.

- Rauhala, lost some importants faceoffs and didn't do much on the offense.

-Saarela, umm had one really stupid penalty in Sweden game, didn't notice him aside from that. Jortikka doesn't seem to like him and I don't see him making the team.

From defense Niku-Mäkinen pairing played well on 5vs5, so did Levo. Vuorisalo, Mäkelä, Eronen and Kuronen were pretty bad.

Both goalies were pretty good. Too bad the defense wasn't really helping them.

Biggest dissapointment was our powerplay. Jortikka seems to have no idea how to organise it. Mäkinen, Levo, Vuorisalo and Eronen played on powerplay, instead of 4 forwards which was really weird. Hopefully we will see 4 forwards and 1 of Lyytinen/Honka in the actual tournaments.

sry for typos i'm a bit drunk.
 

FiLe

Mr. Know-It-Nothing
Oct 9, 2009
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Hintz-Mustonen-Ikonen line played well and looks like it could be a potential line for WJC. Hintz was out best player in these games.

Rantanen, Björninen and Lehkonen didn't do anything. Expected a lot more from Lehkonen and Rantanen. Björninen was decent 2 way center.

Aho, Kalapudas, Puljujärvi, some flashes of nice play with 2 goals in the tournament but some awful defensive lapses. I don't see Aho or Kalapudas making it, Puljujärvi seems to always be the one carrying that line.

Saarela-Rauhala-Ojamäki

- Ojamäki played really well with 2 goals and nice work on PK.

- Rauhala, lost some importants faceoffs and didn't do much on the offense.

-Saarela, umm had one really stupid penalty in Sweden game, didn't notice him aside from that. Jortikka doesn't seem to like him and I don't see him making the team.
Seems like you don't dig most of our centres aside from Mustonen. Not that I disagree with your assessment, but if you figure most of them were bad, who do you see making it then? Even if Jortsu doesn't dig 'em now, he may have no choice but to pick some of them anyway.

One option could be moving Hintz down the middle, which might give us the top-six of:

Lehkonen - Mustonen - Kapanen
Rantanen - Hintz - Ikonen


For bottom-six, then:

Lammikko - Kalapudas - Puljujärvi
Saarela - Björninen - Ojamäki

Björninen was decent, but don't see much use of him in a top-six role. Which still makes Kalapudas the best option for 3C, unless Jortsu gives a shot to Kinnunen. I agree with Saarela being mostly anonymous, but given his role in 4th line, that wasn't necessarily a bad thing.

Biggest dissapointment was our powerplay. Jortikka seems to have no idea how to organise it. Mäkinen, Levo, Vuorisalo and Eronen played on powerplay, instead of 4 forwards which was really weird. Hopefully we will see 4 forwards and 1 of Lyytinen/Honka in the actual tournaments.
Now this is moot critique. To me, it sounds like Jortikka has very much an idea how to do it. There's no point in using four forwards if the point is to use three and two d-men with the final team. There is nothing weird about those guys playing PP if you see 'em as nothing but placeholders. Out of those, only Levo could be of some use, but in the likely case all of that foursome will get replaced by Honka, Tuulola, Lyytinen and Ilvonen or Lintuniemi. And in case some of 'em are sidelined, at least Jortsu knows now who NOT try instead. So yeah, a little silly complaints since this was a practice tournament.
 
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master4071

Registered User
Nov 30, 2011
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So if not Saarela, maybe Rantanen could be center for Lahkonen and Kapanen?...now would be rather unwise to separate that Hintz-Mustonen-Ikonen line...Björninen and Ojamäki seems very close to be on that final roster...courious what will happen with Saarela, maybe he can be just an extra forward
 

JJTT

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Jan 18, 2013
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Oulu
So if not Saarela, maybe Rantanen could be center for Lahkonen and Kapanen?...now would be rather unwise to separate that Hintz-Mustonen-Ikonen line...Björninen and Ojamäki seems very close to be on that final roster...courious what will happen with Saarela, maybe he can be just an extra forward

Rantanen can't play center.

Vähätalo seems like a guy who could do well in this tournament as he is big and has nice skills.

Hintz-Mustonen-Ikonen
Lehkonen-Vähätalo-Kapanen
Rantanen-X(Saarela/Kalapudas/Kinnunen)-Puljujärvi
Lammikko-Rauhala-Ojamäki
Björninen

Of course getting Barkov would solve all our center problems but that propably won't happen.

As for the powerplay, at least Jortikka could've done is to put the best guys out there (Ikonen,Mustonen,Puljujärvi,Lehkonen on same unit with Niku or something like that)
 

master4071

Registered User
Nov 30, 2011
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Yeah, but someone said here that Vähätalo wasn't good lately, so maybe just stick with Saarela there, but if Jortikka didn't give him any minutes in the middle it seems unlikely...but still six weeks of playing, right?
 

JJTT

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Jan 18, 2013
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Vähätalo had a concussion early in the season and only played 4th line role in Liiga. He's been 2 PPG in Juniors.

Yeah 6 weeks. Vähätalo's team has a new head coach so he will likely get bigger minutes there now. Hopefully Saarela improves too.
 
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FiLe

Mr. Know-It-Nothing
Oct 9, 2009
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Yeah 6 weeks. Vähätalo's team has a new head coach so he will likely get bigger minutes there now.
Have to admit, almost forgot about him. But this is one very interesting point. Could be that Jortikka becomes one of the biggest benefactors of TPS's bizarre coaching pick if Elomo decides to put his trust in Vähätalo.
 

Tampahali

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Jan 4, 2014
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Have to admit, almost forgot about him. But this is one very interesting point. Could be that Jortikka becomes one of the biggest benefactors of TPS's bizarre coaching pick if Elomo decides to put his trust in Vähätalo.

We'll have to see what's going to happen, but I'm not too sure if Vähätalo is going to get a bigger role, since Lämsä has been better than Vähätalo also in the juniors. Although Elomo was the assistant coach of the TPS last season when Vähätalo was doing a lot better, so maybe he trusts him more than Lämsä.

But anyway, don't know if either Lämsä or Vähätalo are going to get anything else than fourth line minutes, since I suppose Koskiranta, Lucenius and Kumeliauskas are ahead of them in the pecking order. We'll see.
 

FiLe

Mr. Know-It-Nothing
Oct 9, 2009
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But anyway, don't know if either Lämsä or Vähätalo are going to get anything else than fourth line minutes, since I suppose Koskiranta, Lucenius and Kumeliauskas are ahead of them in the pecking order. We'll see.
I wasn't really expecting Vähätalo to get a place in TPS's top-six. However, given how open the 2C issue seems to be, Jortikka probably has no choice but to check out every Liiga-worthy option. One was hardly expecting Björninen to get a nod like that either.
 

fr9dd9

Registered User
Nov 18, 2010
797
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Sweden
I would like to see the top 3 lines like this

Kapanen - Hintz - Puljujärvi

Lehkonen - Mustonen - Ikonen

lämmikko - vähätalo - rantanen

first line is basiclly the best players available at the moment, and with two playes with good size (much like getzlaf and perry) with a good sniper

then there is the second line with small players who have a little more speed

Dont know about that third line but with the size it might be a good third line who could be difficult to play against! and allso is kapable of doing some damage in the offence

I choose to count out kalapudas and there fore hintz will play center and the duo of hintz and mustonen gets knocked off.. same ass for the puljujärvi and kalapudas duo

power play forwards

pp1 lehkonen - kapanen - puljujärvi

pp2 ikonen - mustonen - hintz

would like if laine got hes game going before the wjc and gets to play some exibition games and can show off hes scoring ability like he did last year

I allso think florida should let barkov play wjc cuz he have had a rough start of the season. It might be just the thing that gets him going! he would miss 5-6 games and might come back as a wjc champion and a hot stick
 
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Tormentor

Registered User
Dec 27, 2007
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Too Far
FIN-RUS match from last week's 4-nations tournament is on YouTube: LINK
Here's the Finnish line-up with jersey numbers: LINK

----

Last year 3 goalies, 9 defensemen and 15 forwards were invited to the pre-WJC camp. If the numbers stay the same and everyone's available, I'd like to see the following players there:

Roope Hintz (-96) - Aleksi Mustonen (-95) - Kasperi Kapanen (-96)
Artturi Lehkonen (-95) - Hannes Björninen (-95) - Mikko Rantanen (-96)
Sebastian Aho (-97) - Antti Kalapudas (-96) - Jesse Puljujärvi (-98)
Juho Lammikko (-96) - Otto Rauhala (-95) - Niko Ojamäki (-95)
Aleksi Saarela (-97) - Julius Vähätalo (-95) - Juuso Ikonen (-95)

Joni Tuulola (-96) - Julius Honka (-95)
Alex Lintuniemi (-95) - Sami Niku (-96)
Joonas Lyytinen (-95) - Atte Mäkinen (-95)
Aleksi Mäkelä (-95) - Vili Saarijärvi (-97)
Mika Ilvonen (-95)

Juuse Saros (-95)
Ville Husso (-95)
Kaapo Kähkönen (-96)
 

kelsier

Registered User
Aug 17, 2013
4,280
1,741
I'd really like to see them try lines of:

Roope Hintz - Aleksi Mustonen - Kasperi Kapanen
Lehkonen/Saarela - Antti Kalapudas - Jesse Puljujärvi
Saarela / Lehkonen - Hannes Björninen - Mikko Rantanen
Juho Lammikko - Otto Rauhala - Juuso Ikonen

Obviously Aho is not fully developed and doesn't belong to the team. The Finnish tabloids are overhyping him as super talent which is pretty laughable. Seems more like surfing along on Puljujärvi's tide. The journalist who don't really know enough think every under ager that gets to play the Liga is world class or maybe they just want to spice up the headlines, whoknows. Anyway, 1st line seems pretty set with Hintz and Mustonen playing Ilves there's no point breaking that up. Saarela's best qualities are a bit wasted on the Center. He seems to have questionable hockey sense at this point. But the guy can score and has amasing wrist shot. Also brings a lot of frame (which he used to dominate in the juniors). I'd give him a try on the line with Kalapudas and Puljujärvi. If it doesn't work then drop him down with Björninen and let Lehkonen fill the spot. There's a shortage of top end centers. Should Barkov be allowed to join the team that would pretty much solve it (but obviously no chance of happening). There will be 3 lines that have talent and if they get the chemistry going we can score enough goals to let a few slide in.

On the left side:
Lehkonen > Hintz > Saarela

Right side:
Kapanen => Puljujärvi > Rantanen

Center:
Mustonen > Kalapudas > (not really sure who'd fair better against who as 3rd center)

Defense seems ok, but Honka really needs to have a great tournament and produce especially on the PP. Goaltending is again world class. All in all, I think we should have a solid group. Might not be enough to defend the title but you never know. Looks better than last year anyway but with worse coach.
 

jaa

Registered User
Oct 24, 2013
93
29
What about Julius Nättinen? Decent stats in the Mestis and a couple of games in FEL also. Has the size (important in smaller rink) and also hands to go with it. Also, he has been constantly producing in u18 and u17 tournaments.
 

FiLe

Mr. Know-It-Nothing
Oct 9, 2009
6,897
1,260
What about Julius Nättinen? Decent stats in the Mestis and a couple of games in FEL also. Has the size (important in smaller rink) and also hands to go with it. Also, he has been constantly producing in u18 and u17 tournaments.
I'd say slim to no chance at this point. Our U20 coaches have been traditionally iffy about adding completely new players this close to the main event, save for those who really start making ripples in Liiga right out the gates.

Not that he couldn't be useful, though. He's the same age as Saarela and club team production seems to be up there too. But still... as much as I'd applaud Jortsu for turning every possible stone in search of that 2C, I'd say his time likely comes next year.
 

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