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Are you guys excited?! I am! This is the last time we'll see this kind of international hockey until the next world cup ...
Anyway our team is doing badly. First we couldn't get Kipper, now it turns out we can't get Lehtonen to replace Kipper, who is the same caliber goalie. So now we're looking at Niittymäki. A decent goalie but definitely not the potential we were hoping for.
THEN we lose Sami Kapanen (Flyers), our good fast winger, then we lose D-man Väänänen. And earlier we lost Tuomo Ruutu. Dang! We can't afford to lose 5 players fast, we can always replace them but the team is not as balanced anymore. For example, we replaced Kapanen with Nieminen. Now we have too eggheads, J. Ruutu and Nemo. Guess who will be playing with 4 or 3 men the whole game?
T. Ruutu was supposed to balance the team being the third center, now we don't have 4 quality centers anymore. Koivu will be number one, Olli Jokinen who is playing a great season will be number two, but our plan was to bring up a youngster Mikko Koivu (brother of Saku) for the fourth line, to gain experience. Now we lost third center Tuomo Ruutu, so now we actually don't have a good balanced plan anymore. Most replacements will come from the Dallas Stars players, like Jussi Jokinen but he's just a youngster with decent season, not in the level required IMO.
On positive note, Selänne has had a good season and keeps averaging over 1 point per game, combined with Koivu feeding him and Lehtinen being the defensive winger with the ability to make great turnovers and scoring, we are looking at a very good first line, but second line is lead by Olli Jokinen, he's getting good wingers too but then we are looking at mediocre lines after that. That just won't do. We were totally dependent on Sami Kapanen and Tuomo Ruutu...
And the goalie section has taken that huge double hit already. Combined with a weak coach, a true underachiever coach, some of the mediocre lines really have to step up and the star lines have to be effective. We don't seem to be having the scoring problem this year, but we do have the goalie problem. Our defense is looking OK, with Salo, Pitkänen, Timonen etc but... who knows.
No excuses though. I hope they can trash few good teams
Anyway our team is doing badly. First we couldn't get Kipper, now it turns out we can't get Lehtonen to replace Kipper, who is the same caliber goalie. So now we're looking at Niittymäki. A decent goalie but definitely not the potential we were hoping for.
THEN we lose Sami Kapanen (Flyers), our good fast winger, then we lose D-man Väänänen. And earlier we lost Tuomo Ruutu. Dang! We can't afford to lose 5 players fast, we can always replace them but the team is not as balanced anymore. For example, we replaced Kapanen with Nieminen. Now we have too eggheads, J. Ruutu and Nemo. Guess who will be playing with 4 or 3 men the whole game?
T. Ruutu was supposed to balance the team being the third center, now we don't have 4 quality centers anymore. Koivu will be number one, Olli Jokinen who is playing a great season will be number two, but our plan was to bring up a youngster Mikko Koivu (brother of Saku) for the fourth line, to gain experience. Now we lost third center Tuomo Ruutu, so now we actually don't have a good balanced plan anymore. Most replacements will come from the Dallas Stars players, like Jussi Jokinen but he's just a youngster with decent season, not in the level required IMO.
On positive note, Selänne has had a good season and keeps averaging over 1 point per game, combined with Koivu feeding him and Lehtinen being the defensive winger with the ability to make great turnovers and scoring, we are looking at a very good first line, but second line is lead by Olli Jokinen, he's getting good wingers too but then we are looking at mediocre lines after that. That just won't do. We were totally dependent on Sami Kapanen and Tuomo Ruutu...
And the goalie section has taken that huge double hit already. Combined with a weak coach, a true underachiever coach, some of the mediocre lines really have to step up and the star lines have to be effective. We don't seem to be having the scoring problem this year, but we do have the goalie problem. Our defense is looking OK, with Salo, Pitkänen, Timonen etc but... who knows.
No excuses though. I hope they can trash few good teams
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