Despite the victory, the France match highlighted several shortcomings in Finland’s playing, writes journalist Jussi Paasi.
Jussi Paasi
Finland beat France in the World Hockey Championship. There is nothing surprising about that.
And it’s not even surprising that the victory was really meager – and came after a poor performance. In the tournament, we see every year how weaker countries are able to bully stronger ones from time to time.
A win is always a win, but when you look behind the result, you can see some downright worrying signs from the Lions’ point of view.
The weakest link shined all the way to the upper galleries of the arena right from the start of the game. The Lions’ defense was on edge immediately when the opponent put even a little pressure on the puck-bound defender. So against France!
What happens when a team with several levels of quality comes up against you? The answer to that was already seen in the USA match.
Playing with pucks in one’s own area was largely a hasty splash. The structure of your attacks begins. Finland’s defenders only Olli Määttä and Mikko Lehtonen were capable of sufficiently high-quality opening play. Others had a hard time, really hard.
Jukka Jalonen the coaching team has a hard job finding the medicine for the painful hockey game in their own region.
There are other pain points. Leijon has not yet found a single well-functioning attack chain. Although the opening series of the World Cup is as long as a year of hunger, the pain is starting to grow in the helmets of the star players. Successes should come, playing should be liberating.
There are sure to be lineup changes if the current lineups don’t fall into place in Friday’s match against Hungary. If a common note has not been found during five games, it is necessary to modify the chains, maybe also the pairs of defenders.
I wrote after the game against Sweden that two painful people from Turku must be put in the same chain. After the France match, I am even more convinced of my opinion. Mikko Rantanen and Kaapo Kako together. Now.
The superiority game yielded one goal for Finland, but there is still plenty of room for improvement. It was worth noting that the superiority of France worked much better than the forced play of the host team.
As everyone knows, the quarterfinals are the most important game in this tournament. If Finland wins it, the crisis is averted. Right now it seems that Leijon still has a long way to go to avoid a crisis.