Kaapo Kako has started well in Seattle after the recent player trade. However, in the Vancouver game over Christmas, eyebrows almost rose to the top of their heads.
The second, who is still looking for a big breakthrough in the attacking game with bucks, started to pass the game tool backwards in a completely clear run.
Could it be more Finnish?
A little one lives in each of us Raimo Helminen. A good team player who gets more pleasure from a spectacular pass than a goal scored himself. Kakko flashed his inner Raipea in a tough spot. As a team, Seattle needs every possible point now and in the future.
And Kakko didn’t flash this side of himself for the first time.
Kakko has always been known as a solution player, whose resume includes, among other things, the golden goal of the World Youth Championships in winter 2019. However, in the NHL, this has started to pay off. The second looks for a pass to the last even in clear goal positions. This is directly reflected in the statistics.
There are ten more assist points than goals. At the same time, there have been only about 1.5 shots per game during the six NHL years. If the shooting percentage of Kako’s NHL career is below 12, such shooting numbers do not promise a bigger breakthrough in the future.
We need more healthy selfishness.
The trigger finger of the Finns is tight
Kakko is not the only one who realizes his inner Raipea in the NHL. Nothing is more Finnish than selflessness.
Where the North American sports culture trains players from childhood to be ruthlessly competitive, even selfish, the Finnish player is still profiled as a team player who prefers to pass rather than shoot.
Finnish ice hockey has an excellent cultural tradition for this.
Pearl, Matti Hagman, Esa Keskinen and so on. We have always been able to give artistic input the value it deserves.
That, in turn, has made the artists who have made feeding their own art form, often ask for feeding even when the people can’t wait for it anymore.
Some of the players of our time represent a clear continuation of the tradition of previous decades. Alexander Barkov is one of the best playmakers and pass-first guys of the new era.
Teuvo Teräväinen and in Matias Maccelli I’ve always seen a lot about Helm and Keski – the elegant elegance of the old league and really high-class reading and passing skills.
However, few are able to support themselves at the top level.
It is actually deafening to note that among the hundred hardest-working shooters in the NHL, there are only two Finns: Dallas’ Roope Hintz and Carolina Sebastian Aho. When limiting playing time to at least 300 minutes and looking at shots per 60 minutes played, Hintz’s ranking is 66th, Aho’s 92nd.
The next Finn can be found at number 122, and that’s it Mikael Granlund. He has not been known as a puck cannon either.
And it’s not a single coincidence. Last season, he only reached the top 100 Mikko Rantanen ranked 83rd.
Sure Patrick Laine belongs to the top 100 if the game minute limit is counted. Repeated absences from games are shown in the statistics.
If you take the idea further and look at personal dangerous goal positions, only two Finns can fit into the top 100: Hintz and Colorado’s Artturi Lehkonen. During the previous three years, Lehkonen is the only Finn who has been in the top 100 in every season.
It’s not surprising, because Lehkonen, who penetrates every position with his beak, gets his goals through the amount of work. Lehkonen is not the type of player who stays in the background looking for a starting position. Lehkonen is the one who gets a couple of ribs beaten into the package while he moves the puck from one meter to the goal.
The goal-scoring game is not Finland’s strength
Of course, the game of superiority plays its own role in the whole. It is still special that for the three previous years, only Patrik Laine (32nd) and Mikko Rantanen (67th) are in the top 100 in the number of shots (at least 500 minutes). The domestic top five can be found, among other things Jesse Puljujärvi.
This is naturally also reflected in the number of goals. In the previous three years, Rantanen has scored the fourth most goals in the NHL, and Hintz and Ahok fit into the top 30. Barkov can be found at number 86. At the same time, Sweden brings six players to the top50 and nine players to the top100.
The goal-scoring game is still not the strength of Finnish hockey. No, even though the cream of the Finnish lattice is thicker than ever before and the number of goals in the NHL is increasing. Patrik Laine, who has recovered in such an environment, is worth his weight in gold, for example, at the national team’s top tournament in February.
Just looking at the number of launches is still just the surface. You should understand why there aren’t more shots, especially from players who are still chasing their breakthrough.
Why is it difficult to get to the top places? Is the reason really in the inner Helm or in the difficulty of getting to places where you could swing the net?
It would be easy to lean towards the last theory presented. Especially in skating, Finland continues to lose to the top of the world. On the other hand, one could ask how many people have honed their shots to such a condition that they can score goals with it.
Still, it’s also about character quality. A healthy and even slightly healthy selfishness is a virtue for a player who wants to solve. This kind of thinking does not suit the nature of the Finnish people.
In Patrik Lainee, there is not a bit of Helm and there is no need to be. Not that Also in Teemu Selänte been Every shot is an opportunity.
Puck in the net, name in the paper.