Saturday’s early card was a European rivalry game with plenty of physicality scattered throughout. It saw team Finland win over Sweden 4-3 in overtime.

It’s a Team Game – Finland’s ability to fight back after trailing on two separate occasions was not something I had on my Bingo card. I had made assumptions about the state of their defence and depth on forward, but they had their big guns show up in a huge way. Sweden were no slouches either employing a consistent attack after a strong start. In a swing of the tides from the last time there was best-on-best international play, Sweden was not anchored by the tank that was Henrik Lundqvist anymore. Neither Filip Gustavsson nor Linus Ullmark closed the door enough to stretch things into a victory. Mikael Granlund ending things in overtime, keeping the puck and firing a dart underneath the pads of Ullmark to keep team Finland’s chance at the final game alive. They now just need a victory over the Canadians on Monday.

Corsi King – Victor Hedman (63.23 per cent) is another one of those players we got robbed from seeing in International play for the prime of his career. He’s still absolutely fantastic, we were just robbed of seeing even more of it and that’s a darn shame. Adrian Kempe (61.72 per cent) is another player I really think gets underrated in these levels of competition. Twice he has scored 35+ in the NHL and is on track to get close to that again this year. He has breakneck speed that gives him a top-level north-south game. Finland’s large defenceman were able to limit that from him quite effectively.

With no clear-cut number one defenceman I was wondering who was going to step up for Finland. Henri Jokiharju (76.13 per cent) led in percentage due to just a three to one ratio in shot attempts during his sixteen minutes of ice time. It was Nikolas Matinpalo (69.16 per cent) and Urho Vaakanainen (64.12 per cent) that pushed the most offence though. Matinpalo was out for a fifteen to seven attempt ratio. One note – for some reason Olli Maata is missing from the NaturalStatTrick tables, but he was paired with Jokiharju (would lead to similar percentages) and made some critical defensive plays for Finland.

Taken By Chance – Sweden achieved a very small amount of high danger looks. The defence pairing of Gustavs Forsling (36.36 SCF% || 64.45 HDCF%) and Rasmus Dahlin (36.36 per cent || 64.45 per cent) was the standout for the boys in yellow. Erik Karlsson (73.50 per cent || 0 per cent) did score a nice goal too but was not as effective overall as Dahlin. Up front Filip Forsberg (73.44 per cent || 46.78 per cent) led with two high danger chances earned for forwards.

Now Sweden produced a small number of high danger chances, Finland produced less. It was not a four-star offensive game rather one where the goaltending was not up to par on either side. Aleksander Barkov – who is always a top tier player – doesn’t have his goal registered on NaturalStatTrick either. Take the percentages within this one lightly. Anyways, Barkov showed up when it mattered most with the tying goal late in the second period. A match-up nightmare there’s no surprise Sweden struggled to score. He’ll have his hands more full with Crosby, MacKinnon, McDavid next.

xGF% – Late in the game I felt Elias Pettersson’s (44.64 per cent) neutral zone and transitional decision making to be a bit off. He was missing some clear break-in reads which led to his line being stale on chances. I think Sweden were a bit surprised by the tenacity of the group from Finland and struggled to generate any offence because of it. William Nylander (39.37 per cent) did perhaps make the best pass for team Sweden so far with the backhand feed to Karlsson for his goal.

Finland used their top talent in this one to stay alive. Mikko Rantanen (52.93 per cent) and Sebastian Aho (58.41 per cent) are tremendous elite compliments to Barkov (59.58 per cent). After those guys though the next most offensively impactful piece they have was the man of the day, overtime hero and newest member of the Dallas Stars Mikael Granlund (48.17 per cent). Talk about creating a memory you will never forget, overtime magic on the international stage.

In The Crease – Someone in July is going to give Kevin Lankinen (0.00 GSAx at 5v5) a lot of money. He was excellent for Finland and has been a rock for the Canucks on just an 875K salary. Sweden had two guys play – Gustavsson (-0.67 GSAx at 5v5) and Ullmark (0.27 GSAx at 5v5) who both let in a weak goal. Ullmark’s was a little more costly with it coming in overtime and all. These teams are both still in contention, Lankinen will have to battle Canada to make it and Sweden has to make a choice before they face the powerhouse United States. 

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