The Finnish men’s national ice hockey team narrowly defeated Austria 3–1 in the World Cup on Saturday.
Austria stayed in the game persistently and for a long time, because Ahti Oksanen only hit the decision of the match in 58.08.
Leijonat had already made a change to chains in the match against Hungary, when Kasperi Kapanen and Joel Armia switched places in the third set.
Kapasen, Kaapo Kako and Antti Suomelan the second chain already hit Hungary once and continued this in the match against Austria. Ketju was the most dangerous in Finland and was also responsible for two of Leijoni’s goals.
For the first time there was a spark already in 1:19, when Kakko released Kapanen to drive through. Later, Suomela, on the other hand, guided the puck into the goal in a beautiful way Olli Määtä input.
Kapanen, who played strongly, dedicated his goal to his grandmother, who had been watching his match on the spot for a long time.
– That was for the lady. I can’t remember the last time he was there when I was playing. It was for him today, Kapanen revealed to C More. (you switch to another service)
The puck loss backfired
In addition to the second chain that played cheerfully, Määttä was also in good shape. He caught two service points and was also close to the third point in the opening set.
The only child of the lions’ batch was seen at just under five minutes, when Harri Pesonen lost the puck and Dominique Zweger managed to counterattack.
– A good start from us, even though Austria leveled on a counterattack. We created goalscoring chances, but they should be decided. Perhaps the goal-scoring support measures were not as good as they should have been, Suomela stated.
Austria’s game showed that the team’s eyes are already on Monday’s match against Hungary, where the team relegated from the A series will be decided.
Austria dug an experienced one for the goal by David Madlerner, for whom the match was the first in this WC tournament. The last time he played at the World Cup level was in the spring of 2018 for two matches.
Jalonen also touched the first chain
Especially in the second period, Austria was mostly content to defend, although the team handled it very closely. The Lions had only six shots on goal in the set, while Austria, which struck with counterattacks, scored seven times.
The head coach Jukka Jalonen according to the second set was difficult. He praised Austria for defending the center well, and the Lions couldn’t get to the core properly.
– We didn’t shoot far enough, as you sometimes have to shoot. We kept the puck, but nothing really happened. Fortunately, there was a good run in the third set, commented Jalonen.
– That’s how it goes sometimes, that you can’t control the game and keep the puck all the time. We created a level playing field with 23 places, and that’s a reasonably good number. That’s double the average.
In the final set, Leijonat got into a new gear, and the goal was not far away.
However, the game of the first chain was tight throughout the match. At the end of the third period, head coach Jalonen broke the number one chain for the first time in this tournament, when the red-hot Kapanen was lifted Teemu Hartikainen instead, and “Härski” took the place in the second chain.
The experiment was very short-lived, as we only had time to play with these chains for two shifts.
Austria challenged for offside
In the final moments, Ahti Oksanen flashed her shot for the second time in this tournament. Oksanen scored from a small corner with his accurate shot to the top corner of the puck.
Austria challenged the situation before the goal as offside, but after a video inspection, the referees decided that the puck did not completely cross the blue line.
With the win, Finland practically secured its place in the quarterfinals. Finland will face Denmark in the final match of the first group on Tuesday before the playoff matches.
– Little by little, fewer goals have been scored. We have given the builder very few goal chances and created quite a lot ourselves. If there’s anything I’d like, it’s a little sharpness in scoring, Jalonen said.
– The games would look quite different if we did with such efficiency as we have done at our best.