International TournamentsDiscuss International Tournaments like the WJC, Olympics, and World Cup, as they take place, or discuss past tournaments. performances.
I'm going with somewhat of an upset here. I think Finland, in front of the home crowd will pull out a hotly contested victory by a score of 4-3, setting up a semi-final match-up against the U.S.
I also hope the canada win it all but I think Canada needs a true Game Breaker ( ala Parise ) to win the final. I love Burns Carter Stewart ... but Parise is Simply Amazing. Crosby will be our New God next year.
I also hope the canada win it all but I think Canada needs a true Game Breaker ( ala Parise ) to win the final. I love Burns Carter Stewart ... but Parise is Simply Amazing. Crosby will be our New God next year.
A Canada/U.S. final would be outstanding. I think the dynamic of the bigger Canadian team, vs the IMO quicker U.S. team would be awesome.
I don't want to predict this in terms of diminishing hopes of seeing Krikunov and Grot play but I do believe that the host country Finland will put forth a strong effort and squeak a 4-3 win over Russia.
In my experience, teams rarely turn their game around mid-tourney and thus I think Finns are slight favourites here. Still haven't seen Russia, but the reports coming in from Hämeenlinna suggest that apart from couple forwards the team is playing badly. I expect a fairly high score, Finns will propably forecheck the Russian defenceman hard and Russian's PK has been horrendous while Finns PP is OK. OTOH, Jalasvaara-Ovechkin one-on-one gives me creeps, and on the whole Finns dmen after the top three of Lepistö, Kalteva and Kantee have been shaky, more so now that Korpikari is out.
To sum up. Finns win if they can score and don't play too passively. Russians win if their forwards can outscore Finns and if they can stay out the penalty box. Prediction: 5-3 Finns, special teams and goaltending being the decisive factor.
Team Finland head coach Aravirta said in an interview that Russia has many talented individuals but Team Finland will try to win them as a team rather than individuals. In a team sport the one that plays better as a team usually wins but this can go either way. We got the better goalie but Russians got the better forwards so it's really hard to predict the winner in this one. Still, I hope that Team Finland wins by 2-3 goals margin.
The last thing either Canada or US would want to see is a revitalized Russia team, because we all know what'll happen if Russia wakes up - déjà vu.
I don't think the Russians will make it past the Finns. I am hugely disappointed in the Russian team performance so far. I predict a 1:4 loss to Finland.
