Tanner: Team Finland
Team Finland World Cup • RSS
• Archive
• CONTACT
The Finish team finished the preliminary round 1-2, splitting a couple games with Sweden and losing to the Americans.
All in all, it was a good beginning for the Finns as they beat a very good Swedish team and could easily have had the game against America go their way.
They begin the Round Robin portion of the tournament Sunday vs North America.
In the meantime, let's get to know the team, as it features many players who are unfamiliar to most hockey fans.
Today, we'll do the defense.
2 D Jyrki Jokipakka
Entering his third pro season, Jokipakka is a 6'3 left-shooting defenseman drafted by the Stars and currently playing for the Flames.
He isn't expected to develop into much more than a serviceable depth player at the NHL level. He's the Flame's 6th defenseman and they aren't exactly one of the NHL's best teams.
He's serviceable and could still get better, since he's primarily a puck-moving dman. The fact that he's being asked to be the fourth D man in this tournament (I assume, since he's the worst of the four NHL defenseman they have) is probably not a good thing for him or Finland.
In the three games so far he played 17, 15 and 19 minutes.
55 D Rasmus Ristolainen
A huge right-shooting defenseman with great offensive skills, Risto put up 41 points in his second year in the NHL and looks like a core piece for the Sabres moving forward.
He is 21 and there is obviously room for growth, but questions abound about his defensive game. Can he become an all-round threat like Kris Letang or PK, or is he destined to be a one dimensional chance trader like Roman Josi?
Either way, he's one of Finland's top defenseman and so far has been their ice-time leader in this tournament.
3 D Olli Määttä
His 22 points last year in 67 games were probably somewhat disappointing, but all signs point to him being a very good NHL defenseman. It seems like he's been around for a long time, but he's only 22.
Having been the second-best defensman on a team that won a Stanley Cup makes him just about the most successful and probably best of the Finnish Blue Line.
Despite being, in my opinion, their best defenseman, the top pair of Vatanen and Risto gets the most ice-time and Maatta anchors the second pairing.
18 D Sami Lepistö
Lepisto is a former NHL player (176 career games) who hasn't played in the league since 2011-12. He dressed for one game in the prelims and only played 13 minutes.
He's their number 7 dman and a good representation of the lack of depth they suffer from on D.
7 D Esa Lindell
Lindell played in all three prelim games, playing 11, 14 and 15 minutes. He's a third round pick by the Stars and has played 4 NHL games.
P.K Subban and TJ Brodie were not good enough to make Team Canada, while Finland dresses Esa Lindell and is forced to play him 14 minutes per game. This means that a gold medal for Finland would be a Christmas Miracle, assuming they have Christmas in Finland.
There seems to be a fairly good chance that Lindell is going to play this year in the NHL, so I don't want to be too hard on him. I tried to notice him the other night versus the Americans and I didn't see anything that made him look bad, so maybe he can be an underrated kind of young player who elevates his game in a tourny like this and really ends up helping out.
Note: it turns out that not only do they have Christmas in Finland, but they claim that Santa Clause is actually Finnish.
45 D Sami Vatanen
Vatanen of the Ducks is one of the Finn's best players. He is a power-play weapon and quite fun to watch. At 25 he's one of the NHL's best up-and-coming defenseman and as a 2009 4th round pick has seemingly come out of nowhere, surpassing many of the Ducks higher ranked prospects in the process.
22 D Ville Pokka
A second round pick by the Islanders in 2012, Pokka has yet to play an NHL game. He played 11 and 15 minutes in the first two games and was scratched against Sweden.
Lindell, Lepisto and Pokka are the three non-NHL defenseman that make up the soft underbelly of the Finnish team, and emphasize how necessary a hot goaltender will likely be for them to medal at this tournament.
Still, one of the fun things about something like the World Cup is getting to know players who aren't typically on your radar.
Join the Discussion:
»