The Finnish goalie wonder

Over the course of the last 20 years or so, the NHL has seen many changes. One of the big changes is the different nationalities of the league's players, especially how every year we are seeing more and more Europeans coming over to play in the world's top league. Goaltending is a position where it's obvious that Canadians or Americans aren't tops anymore when it comes to developing players at this position.

Which country is the best at developing goalies? That would be Finland. During this current 2015-16 NHL season, there have been a total of ten Finnish netminders to have suited up and played. Ten years ago there maybe only three or four in the league. What's going to happen in the next ten years? We'll likely be seeing a new wave of Finnish goalies coming to the league and snatching up jobs from North America netminders if things stay on course.
  For this article, Ty Dilello talked to three current Finnish netminders in the NHL, who are all at different stages in their careers. Joonas Korpisalo is a breakout rookie with the Columbus Blue Jackets. Karri Ramo has been an established goaltender in the NHL now for a couple of years with the Calgary Flames. And Pekka Rinne is one of the best netminders in the world, and has been so for many years now with the Nashville Predators. Each of these goalies was asked what makes Finland the best at developing world class goaltenders. 
  Let's start with 21 year old Joonas Korpisalo who was called up to the Blue Jackets midway through the season because of injuries to Sergei Bobrovsky and Curtis McEihinney. The play of Korpisalo has been one of the lone bright spots for Columbus this season, in a year where they are clearly in rebuild mode. At the time of writing this article, Joonas is 9-6-1 with a .922 save percentage.
  The 6'3' Korpisalo was a 3rd round (62nd overall) pick of the Blue Jackets at the 2012 NHL Entry Draft. Before coming to North America at the end of last season, Joonas was Finland's starting netminder at the 2013 World Juniors. He also got valuable experience playing in the SM-Liiga for a season and a half with Ilves.
  Korpisalo had this to say about why Finland is so good at making top goaltenders, "From the time you start playing as a goalie, when you're 8, 10, 12 or whatever, you always have your own goalie coach. That's the biggest thing I think. You have this guy that's helping solely you and guiding you, giving you the tools to work with and be a better goalie. It's really high quality goaltending in Finland wherever you go."
  The native of Pori, a decent sized city of 85,000 on the west coast of Finland claims his first NHL win as the best moment of his young hockey career. Even though he idolized Dominik Hasek growing up, Joonas never thought much of copying the Dominator's flopping style. "I'm pretty athletic, so sometimes you have to do whatever it takes to stop the puck. But I'm not really like Hasek," Korpisalo said. "Coming to North America itself wasn't so hard after a while. Of course the rink is smaller, and all the guys come in front of the net so much with lots of shots. That's probably the biggest thing to see the puck all the way, but the transition in coming here was pretty easy for me."
  Korpisalo's strong play for the Blue Jackets has even impressed their usually 'tough on players' head coach John Tortorella. "He's unflappable as far as his mental toughness goes," Tortorella said. "It's been just a great experience for him as far as what he's doing for the team, and for himself as far as his confidence."

***

Next up is Calgary Flames starting netminder Karri Ramo who is currently in his third year with the club. Drafted by the Tampa Bay Lightning way back in 2004, Karri didn't make his NHL debut until the 2006-07 season. He saw limited action in three seasons with Tampa, often coming to and from the Lightning's AHL affiliate.
  Prior to the 2009-10 season, it was looking like Ramo was going to be bound once again for minor league action in the AHL. He decided to look elsewhere and eventually signed with Avangard Omsk of the KHL. Ramo quickly became one of the top goalies in Russia and spent four seasons in the KHL with Omsk, compiling a 99-48-22 record. He led his club to the Gagarin Cup Finals in 2012, where they fell to Dynamo Moscow in seven games.
  While Karri was in Russia, his NHL rights were traded several times-first to Montreal and then to Calgary. On July 5th 2013, The 6'3' Ramo signed with Calgary to replace the recently retired Miikka Kiprusoff in goal for the Flames. He's been in Calgary ever since and has been thriving, with winning seasons his first two years with the club. He even led the Flames to a second round playoff appearance in 2015.
  Regarding Finnish goaltending, Karri said, "Probably the work ethic is one thing. Also we watch every goalie in the NHL that comes from Finland when we're growing up. In Finland, goalies spend lots of time not only on the ice, but they work on stuff off the ice with coaches so that's very important."
  Growing up in southern Finland, Ramo idolized fellow Finnish netminders Miikka Kiprusoff, as well as Pasi Nurmimen who hails from a city near Karri's hometown. Ramo is happy to be back playing in the NHL, but credits his stint in the KHL as a big help in making him the goaltender he is today. "I think it was good for me at that stage of my career that I was able to be on a team where I was playing almost every game and counted on by my guys," Ramo said. "I grew as a player and when you play a lot of games at that level, you're going to get better."

***

Finally we have Pekka Rinne. The Nashville star netminder who ranks up there as one of the league's best goalies over the past ten years. Hailing from Kempele in Northern Finland, Rinne is an athletic freak standing at 6'5', and is a treat to watch between the pipes every game he plays because of his athletic style of goaltending.
  Rinne is one of those players who came from nowhere and made a name for himself in the NHL. Nashville scouts that got him drafted had only watched him in warm-up before an SM-Liiga game. He was Niklas Backstrom's backup in Karpat and rarely played, so he must of impressed the scouts enough in the pre-game warm-up for the Predators to select him 258th overall (8th round) at the 2004 NHL Entry Draft.
  Pekka came over to North America that summer and has been in Nashville ever since. He made the Second All-Star Team in 2011, and has been a Vezina Trophy finalist three times (2011, 2012, 2015). Rinne has also represented Finland in international competition every chance he gets. In 2014, he helped Finland win a silver medal at the World Championships. The following year he failed to win a medal, but was awarded 'Best Goaltender' of the tournament for his stellar impeccable play. At that 2015 Worlds, he broke the record for the longest shutout streak in World Championship history. He played 237:05 without giving up a game. That's almost four full games!
  The very humble and respectful Rinne is well liked by pretty much everyone in the league for being an overall nice guy. Rookie forward Miikka Salomaki who also hails from Finland can attest to this since he has Pekka to thank for easing his transition to the NHL. "Pekka is a great help for me," Salomaki said. "He's a great guy and always helps me if I have any questions or need anything. The other guys help too of course, but especially Rinne I can't thank him enough."
  Rinne gave us the best response on the question about what makes Finnish goaltending so strong, "I feel like it's been going on for years. They really focus on goalies in Finland and from an early age you have your own goalie coach who usually has a lot of knowledge on the position. They're usually former goalies passing their knowledge to the younger generations and I always feel like the biggest thing is always watching and then copying other goalies." Rinne said. "Also, as a national team we've always had a lot of respect for the goalies on the team, and because of that I think as a country we've always produced really good goalies. It's just in our culture. Maybe in other countries, all the players want to be scoring goals as a kid. But in Finland, it's a cool thing to be a goalie. And I think that makes a big difference too but I don't know, having a goalie coach from the time you start playing in Finland is a big thing."
  Known for having one of the best glove hands in the game, Pekka credits playing Pesapallo (Finnish baseball) as a contributor to the quickness of his glove hand today in the National Hockey League. "I'm sure playing Finnish baseball helped a little bit," Rinne said. "I used to wear a baseball glove all the time, and I'm sure it improves your hand eye coordination. I always try and tell kids when I visit different hockey camps that they should play other sports too growing up. It's not going to hurt your hockey, it makes you a better athlete in the long run."
 

Tweets by @eurohockey