Finland continues to put up football scores

If Finland's start on Friday against Belarus was furious, today it was anything but. It seemed that almost every player was still mentally somewhere else when the game started. Only Finland's grinding line of Jesse Joensuu, Niko Kapanen and Leo Komarov could bring the pressure into Slovakian end of the rink. Both teams had changed goalies from their first game when Jan Laco played for Slovakia and Petri Vehanen for Finland. 

"For me it is an ideal situation when I can play anyone I want out of our three goalies Vehanen, Lehtonen or Rämö and the level stays the same. All three goalies are tremendous" said Finnish coach Jukka Jalonen.

After some seven minutes, Slovakia had a really good scoring chance via an odd-man rush but Vehanen made a great pad save on Tomas Surovy's shot. Right after that, the puck went behind the Slovakian goal where Mikael Granlund forechecked the puck for Finland, made a nice pass to the front of goal. There, Janne Pesonen first missed the puck, but luckily this "fake shot" brought Laco to his knees, which allowed Pesonen to lift a backhander into top corner of the Slovakian goal. Few believed at this point that this was to be the game's only goal.

After Finland's goal, play kept going from end to end without any high level. 

"We made a lot of terrible passes, both the defence and forwards, and also many turnovers on top of that. Luckily for us, and thanks to our goalie Vehanen Slovakia couldn't score," said Jalonen.

Finland's struggles on the power play continued from the last game. This time, they had five opportunities with the man advantage, but with poor results. 

"Yes, it is still our main problem," Jalonen admitted. "On the other hand, there are still many games to come and we just have to keep working."

The second period was still very even. Mika Pyörälä had maybe the best chance, but right at the moment of shooting, the puck flipped over his stick and he never got a shot. 

Zdeno Chara is certainly one of the most interesting players in this tournament, but apparently he has watched Ryan Getzlaf's game; so lazy and sloppy he was today. It was not only once or twice when Finland had a turnover because Chara lost the puck or made a terrible pass. On top of this, he took a stupid penalty when Finnish agitator Leo Komarov got under his skin, resulting in a slashing penalty.

In the third period, Slovakia seemed already a bit tired. They made some counterattacks, but at the end Finland didn't have much of a problemdefending against them. Maybe tireness or something else brought Slovakia also into penalty trouble when Andrej Sekera and Dominik Granak took penalties almost within 90 seconds.

Vladimir Vujtek, the Slovakian coach, thought they had a good game. "We played very well against the world champions in their home rink. Also, our goaltender Laco was very good."

Jussi Jokinen after the game

Finland's top line of Valtteri Filppula, Mikko Koivu and Jussi Jokinen has suffered a little bit from Jokinen's poor play. Somehow, he just hasn't yet found the same wavelength as his linemates. Today, he again had a couple of really good scoring chances but couldn't put the puck in the net. 

"Yes, scoring is a funny thing. Sometimes it goes in, sometimes not. Me and the whole our team just have to keep trying and working hard and it will come."

"Although our game was not good today we have to remember that we got three points also from this game and that is the most important thing," was Jalonen's comment on their play.

Also, in Helsinki it seems that the crowd is getting, little by little, into the mood of the World Championships. Today, almost 13 thousand cheered for the Lions and the atmosphere inside Hartwall Arena was great.

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