Before the start of the World Cup in Slovakia, the Finnish national team was hardly even included in the extended list of contenders for gold medals. There were good reasons for this: the overwhelming majority of Finnish hockey stars from across the ocean either voluntarily refused an invitation to the world championship, or were employed in the Stanley Cup at the time of forming the final bid for the tournament.
But the coaching staff of Suomi, headed by Jukka Yalonen, didn’t really care. The most experienced specialist relied on the performers who were tested in Euro Tour events, that is, representatives of the local championship and the KHL, diluted them with ambitious youth trying to break into the NHL from the lower leagues, and put the tactical component of the game in which the Finnish national team has traditionally been in recent years very strong.
FINLAND DOES IT !!!! @leijonat HAVE WON THE 2019 # IIHFWORLDSpic.twitter.com / sKZBqSXel6
- IIHF (@IIHFHockey) May 26, 2019As a result, the Finns, who were significantly inferior to all the strongest teams of the planet in the class and the level of individual skill of the leaders, opposed them on an equal footing thanks to aggression, utmost dedication and excellent organization of the game. First of all, in the defense, which goalkeeper of the farm-club "Chicago Blackhawks" Kevin Lankinen cemented his debut at the adult world championships.
Wards Yalonena almost won first place in the standings of their group, in which they had to fight for the leadership of both participating in the 2019 World Cup North American teams. After that, they showed an unyielding character in a spectacular quarter-final confrontation with Sweden, the outcome of which was determined in overtime. In the semifinals, the Russian team was knocked out of the fight for the title. The powerful attack of the squad of Ilya Vorobyov, led by Alexander Ovechkin, Yevgeny Malkin and Nikita Kucherov, was completely neutralized and did not bring any result for the main time.
Raise it high Marko Anttila!
🇫🇮🇫🇮🇫🇮🏆🇫🇮🇫🇮🇫🇮#IIHFWorlds@leijonatpic.twitter.com/1iHakwcT5t
However, the Europeans still approached the fight for gold in which they were to meet with Canada as an outsider, even though they had already beaten up the favorite on Slovak ice - in the world championship opening match, crowned by the double of the 18-year-old super talent Kaapo Kakko - and more than once they argued that they did not feel the slightest fear of big names.
Of course, after the victory over the "red car" - the most powerful in composition team of the world championship - the Scandinavians did not call Mark Stone with Jonathan Marshesso anymore. But the physical condition caused: the main troublemaker at the reporting World Cup needed to recover in just one day after one exhausting battle and tune in to the second.
And the Finnish team coped with it just fine. Yes, the final of the game drawing did not work out. Canadians had a tangible advantage in the long stretches of the match, Suomi was regularly locked in the defense zone and exactly twice outperformed the opponent in shots on shots on target (44 vs. 22).
But the Europeans had enough strength to, firstly, to selflessly rush under each puck on the defensive - many attempts at the “maple” simply did not reach Lankinen, who again acted beyond all praise and did not make any major mistake - and, secondly disperse dagger counterattacks. Therefore, whatever the statistical protocol may say, Matt Murray also had enough work, and in one of the episodes in the second period, the frame of the goal came to the rescue of the Canadian goalkeeper.
Congratulations @leijonat! # IIHFWorldspic.twitter.com / s0AFo18vUM
- IIHF (@IIHFHockey) May 26, 2019Finally, each following trouble only tempered the Finns - and they reacted with a minus sign to any game situation with their blow. During the very first attempt of the Canadian team to play most of the squad Yalonen earned a free throw (his defender Oliver Kaski, however, did not realize), and when the nominal favorites efforts of the representative of the Vegas Golden Knights Shi Theodore still opened the account, the European team did not even think to fall apart .
On the contrary, she seemed to have a second wind, and all thanks to Captain Marco Anttila, who again came to the fore in the moments when his team was desperately needed a real leader on the ice.
The offender Russians in the semi-finals of the 2019 World Cup was the main character of the final and answered Theodor's puck with his own scoring double, which was, to put it mildly, no less unexpected than the final victory of Finland in the world championship with only two NHL players in the application.
The striker who had long ago exchanged the fourth dozen never tried his hand in North America, and in Russia he acted so poorly that he reached the farm club of Novokuznetsk Metallurg in the VHL, but in the playoffs of the Slovak tournament was completely unstoppable. Not having gained any points in the group stage of the World Championship, he distinguished himself four times in three matches for a crash, and in the semifinals and finals he scored winning goals for himself.
Highlights: @leijonat pulls off an incredible 3-1 win over @HC_Men to win the gold medal 201 and 2019 #IIHFWorlds
READ MORE> https://t.co/PC399KXmmPpic.twitter.com/rLnBfgVluc
Losing 1-2, the Canadians threw all their forces into the attack, but instead of pushing the puck past Lankinen by hook or by crook (he ended the meeting with 43 salvages in the asset, but did not get into the symbolic World Cup team, losing to the outstanding Russian player Andrei Vasilevsky), missed another counterattack. After that, five minutes before the final siren, the deafening sensation of the world championship became inevitable. Finished off the "maple" 30-year-old striker Harri Pesonen, at one time unable to break into the foundation of the New Jersey Devils, and now serving in the Swiss championship.
The triumph in Bratislava was only the third in the history of the Finnish team at the World Cup and the first since 2011, when Suomi, incredibly symbolically, won the tournament in Slovakia under the leadership of unsurpassed Yalonen, the second time in a coaching career who managed to blind the champion team from the improvised material. But no matter how unexpected such a result would seem, it cannot be called unfair, because on the way to gold, the Finns beat every single top-level opponent with all their stars, so nothing contrasted with the Scandinavians' exemplary order.