Finland’s scoring and skating fell badly at the World Cup home games in Vantaa. Finland has been left out of the semi-finals in the girls’ under-18 world championships last time in 2018.
9.1. 19:34•Updated 9.1. 23:27
Last year’s silver medalist, the Czech Republic, was too tough for the Tyttöleijons on Thursday in Vantaa in the quarter-finals of the Under-18 Ice Hockey World Championships, which ended 6-0 for the visitors. At the same time, the Tyttöleijonien’s streak in medal games that lasted five World Championships came to an end, of which Finland won two bronze medals.
11 players from last year’s Czech final team were seen on Thursday against Tyttoleijon, and the difference in level between the teams quickly became clear.
In the first set, Finland took so much from the Czech Republic that it made its teeth grind in the stands. Defender Adela Fromova took advantage of Finland’s poor marking play in the defensive area to score a 1–0 goal.
The finishing of the girl lions was lame
In the second set, the Girl Lions had to start with the understrength of two women, for which the Czech Republic punished in just 18 seconds. Czech captain Linda Vocetkova The 3–0 goal forced Finland to take overtime.
After that, Finland settled down but did not manage to finish many of its quality places. The Czech Republic scored 4–0 in the third set underpowered, after which it felt that Finland’s backbone was broken. With the same understrength, the score was 5–0, and the visitors finished the rough final score five minutes before the final buzzer.
– The readings are dull, but the game itself was not so dull. The neighbor scored goals with a pretty high percentage, we didn’t succeed in anything. There was no luck in our scoring situations, Head Coach of the Girl Lions Mira Kuisma analyze.
Skating behind
In the end, Finland won only one game out of four in Vantaa and scored only five goals in the games.
– It is known that too few shots were scored in the tournament. It was also a big focus today. It’s not just about shooting, but we also lacked goal scoring support. But there were places to be made today, Kuisma said.
Six competitions Kuisma, who was the head coach of the Girl Lions, took positives from the weak competition performance.
– Of course, a great experience for the girls, and certainly a valuable lesson for the future. A young group here, which continues its journey – surely we will be more ready, wiser and more experienced in a year’s time.
The World Championships for under-18s have been played since 2008. Kuisma sees a clear point of development when thinking about the upcoming games.
– These eight countries are very even in the World Cup, especially the Europeans and Japan. Everyone knows how to skate that maybe we didn’t do well in that competition in this tournament.
The strikers were chosen as Finland’s best players in the home games Eva Lamberg and Tinja Tapani as well as a goalkeeper who constantly grabbed the top boxes Kerttu Kuja-Halkola.
Sweden-Switzerland 4–1 (0-0, 3-0, 1-1)
USA-Slovakia 9–1 (2-1, 2-0, 5-0)
Czech Republic-Finland 6–0 (1-0, 2-0, 3-0)
Canada-Japan 17–0 (7-0, 7-0, 3-0)
The story was updated on 9.1. at 11:27 p.m.: Added all the results of the quarterfinals and expanded the story throughout