Today is a big day for Olympic team roster announcements and there are a lot of things going on where I am currently located, so I'll be tackling these one at a time. First I will take on the defending Olympic Silver Medalists, Finland.
Goalies.
Niklas Bäckström (Wild), Miikka Kiprusoff (Flames), Antero Niittymäki (Lightning). 44 combined wins this season in the NHL for these 3. Averaging a 2.49 GAA. .919 save % between these 3. 4 shut outs between the three of these goalies.
This is definitely one of the best goaltending teams in the tournament. Kiprusoff is always one of the years most amazingly consistent goalies. He's one of the biggest reasons that Calgary is always in it at the end of the season. Backstrom is starting to come into his own, but probably won't be considered THE guy. Niitymaki had a pretty good run while he was with the Flyers, but hasn't been all that noticeable since, but Kipper and Backstrom make a pretty solid 1, 2 punch if you ask pretty much anybody that plays them. Kipper will be the number 1 guy, almost assuredly.
Defense:
Lasse Kukkonen (KHL), Sami Lepistö (Coyotes), Toni Lydman (Sabres), Janne Niskala (SEL), Joni Pitkänen (Hurricanes), Sami Salo (Canucks), Kimmo Timonen (Flyers)
A pretty solid group here. Admittedly, I am not terribly familiar with each of these players. The ones that I know the most are Sami Salo, big and strong. Very tough defensemen with a great shot. And the other one being Kimmo Tomonen who moves very smoothly and has great passing ability. If there's a knock on this group, it is that they aren't very active offensively. The top 2 are Pitkanen and Timonen, points wise. The downside for those 2 is that, even though they have 17 & 20 points respectively, they are also out for a lot of goals. Timonen is only +1, and Pitkanen is a frightening -13. Salo leads the group in +/- with a +8. On the other side of it, I suppose it's pretty alright to have defensemen that stress defense.
Forwards:
Valtteri Filppula (Red Wings), Niklas Hagman (Maple Leafs), Jarkko Immonen (KHL), Olli Jokinen (Flames), Niko Kapanen (KHL), Mikko Koivu (Wild), Saku Koivu (Ducks), Jere Lehtinen (Stars), Antti Miettinen (Wild), Ville Peltonen (KHL), Jarkko Ruutu (Senators), Tuomo Ruutu (Hurricanes), Teemu Selanne (Ducks).
This group has a lot of well rounded players. Great scoring from people like Selanne, Saku Koivu, Olli Jokinen. Good discipline from Filppula, Mikko Koivu, Lehtinen. And a few agitators, like the Ruutu's. This team is fast, skilled, and will make you take penalties that you shouldn't. There are 14 players that are returning from 2006, hoping to take the gold this time around.
As skilled as many of these players are, they probably won't be taking the gold, however, you never really know. I can definitely see Finland taking Sweden for a good run, and possibly even beating them. The question is, can they stay with team Canada and team Russia? Kipper is a fantastic goalie, and he will need to be amazing in order to do that, and he is capable of being that amazing. But you can't really rely fully on the goalie to win the tournament for you. At some point you need to definitely score. Finland is good, but I think that they lack the game changing potential of offensive defensemen. They will go far, but we may see a rematch of the gold medal game, in the bronze medal round. Hard to tell.
Team grade: B+/A-. There is a lot working for this team, but I don't think enough to quite put them back into the gold medal round.
I will be back in a few hours to touch on the Czech Republic and Team Canada! Let me know your thoughts on Team Finland in the meantime!
You were talking about offensive defencemen, Janne Niskala definedly is one of them. He was taken to the team for role of seventh defencemen because hi's good all-around skills, so he can be put in any situation if needed. But not the smallest reason to take him are he's offensive skills. He will be able to play powerplay along with Timonen Pitkänen Salo.
ReplyDeleteBecause of his offensive skills, he can sometimes give a break to one of top-2 defencemen. He still wont be playing very big minutes. The guy has a great shot and is greatly able to avoid the pucks hitting the traffic, he gets them to the net. I think this year Finland does not use / doesnt haveto use wingers / centers at blueline in powerplay, because there is couple of good defencemen that can score. That will decrease the change of enemies getting shorthanded goals this time..
Shorthanded defencemens for Finland are probably: Salo, Lydman, Timonen.