Jussi Paasi writes about the situation of Valtalaj at the World Championships.
Jussi Paasi sports reporter
The Lions’ games in the World Cup ended in the quarter-finals. Surprised, hands up!
So. No hands are raised.
The Finnish tournament was a vague groping in the initial series. Couldn’t find a plot to play, new chain compositions were tried almost in record numbers, number one star Mikael Granlund fooled himself into a suspension, the number one goalkeeper didn’t seem to be found. And so on.
Without Great Britain’s shock victory over Austria, the Lions would not have even made it to the playoffs. It says almost everything that is essential.
However, something really surprising happened in the semifinals. The lions found exactly the familiar way to play Jukka Jalonen has led his team to Olympic and World Cup gold.
From the first moments of the match, you had to rub your eyes and wonder: is this the same Lions as in the first series? The change that took place in a couple of days was as great as the turnover in Finland’s attack chains. So huge.
And Emil Larmi saved with his goal absolutely in ecstasy.
Jalonen’s underdog shot was poison for Sweden until the end of the third set. Then Tre Kronor succeeded. But almost immediately after, Finland equalized. In overtime, Sweden gained the upper hand, and the star team didn’t miss the opportunity.
The attraction of lions?
However, the tenacious and composed performance of the lions in the quarter-finals does not erase everything that the World Cup tournament had already revealed.
Big questions popped up about the situation of Finland’s dominant sport. The first of them is the appeal of the Lions among the players.
The sport’s top countries were able to attract an exceptional number of NHL players to the Czech Games, but Finland did not. Why were there hardly any willing people?
Some of the NHL players in the frost certainly had injuries or other good reasons for being absent, but the situation looks in the bigger picture as if the Lions are not attractive on the other side of the Atlantic. And this time there was no entry into the team from Europe’s top leagues either.
Could one reason be in the kind of hockey the Lions play? A year ago, an NHL superstar Mikko Rantanen did not fit into Finland’s cramped game template. And not Kaapo Kako. Now the same thing happened to Granlund.
NHL players don’t seem to like the extremely controlled way of playing the ball. The absolute nature of the game and the lack of variations at the same time were visible on the Czech World Cup ice. Finland’s playing was slow and predictable. However, the Sweden game made a small exception to this.
On the other hand, when you watched Sweden play, it was like a beanie at times. In good and bad. But at least the players seemed to be enjoying themselves. And the result came.
The direction must be reversed
The game-style advantage created by Jalonen brought incredible success to Finland over the years. And it was close to not taking Leijon to the medal games this time either.
Time still seems to have passed that famous Our game. With it, you can still bully bigger teams in the Skoda Cup every spring, but the evolution of hockey is rushing in a completely different direction.
And of course, NHL players are at the forefront of its evolution. The Lions have – wanted the future head coach Antti Pennanen it or not – reversible direction for a faster game. A bit in the same style as Rikard Grönborg did this season in Tappara.
The gap with the top countries is growing
I greet with joy the generation change that is now underway in Leijon. However, it would have been worthwhile to start it before last year’s World Cup.
Unfortunately, this new generation only comes from quite a distance behind compared to the top of the sport. And that is a big concern for Finnish ice hockey.
For example Oliver Kapanen, Konsta Helenius, Juha Jääskä and Arttu Hyry are the top scorers of our home league. In the World Cup, they didn’t do well against the big countries – with the exception of the match against Sweden. It speaks harshly about how the SM league does not prepare players well enough for tough international games.
It is telling that, in combat strength, among the Lions’ attackers, looking at the entire tournament, only Granlund, Iiro Pakarinen and Jesse Puljujärvi were able to match the level of the top countries. Others were torn like dirty sheets. That should ring alarm bells.
The differences in level have been visible to everyone for the past few years also at the World Cup level for under-20 and under-18 players. Finland will not make it to the top countries. The level difference is only increasing. Something tartish.
The semifinal was Jukka Jalonen’s last game as Leijoni’s head coach. He managed to win everything that could be won in the national team. Jalonen’s legacy to Finnish ice hockey is so huge that it deserves its own, wider article. We will come back to it during these games.