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S66 IIHF Tournament Recap and Awards - Canadice - 09-14-2022
Another IIHF tournament is in the books with some great results spread across all of the Federations. Another season of IIHF Fantasy organized by @Chevy, saw 111 users participating increasing from the season prior.
In the round robin, Sweden set the tone with only one loss during the 12 games, safely winning Group A by 13 points. Latvia saw it's first entry to the knockout rounds since S49 barely beating out Japan on regulation wins (both were at 16 points).
In Group B, Norway, Austria and Finland were in a league of their own with 27, 26 and 25 points respectively. Austria really saw an improvement from the past two seasons where they only accumulated 9 points during each of the round robins and are back in the knockout stages.
IIHF Awards
This season, the IIHF has restarted its Hall of Fame Committee that will start up its work inducting more players that have produced exceptional results in the IIHF. The Committee was active for two seasons (S49 and S50) and the following post shows the current inductees. The Committee has also taken over the award voting process for the round robin and without further ado here are the S66 Player Awards:
Forward: Jonathan Granström @Halkohol
Granström became the first player since S59 to get more than 20 points in the round robin, with 8 goals and 13 assists, and was a main contributor to the Swedish dominance in the group stage. Scoring with 20% of the shots on net and on the ice for 5.3 goals for per 60 minutes while only conceding 1.7 goals against per 60 minutes. When Granström was on the ice, Sweden was destined to net more goals for.
Defense: Arsene Leclerc @spooked
Leclerc led the defensemen with 6 goals scored and 11 points and was never seen slacking off, being on the ice for an average of 24:53 minutes. During this time Leclerc never gave the puck away and managed to take the puck away from the opposition 12 times. Leclerc had an astounding PDO of 107.1, seemingly forcing the puck to bounce his way.
Goalie: Mat Smith @Matteo
With a unanimous committee vote, Smith put up great performances for Finland when playing in the net, winning 7 out of the 8 starts. Smith also lead the round robin with a save percentage of 0.921 and the only goaltender with a lower goals against average than 2 (out of goalies playing more than 60 minutes). There wasn't really any debate that Smith was the best goaltender of the round robin.
Vote results:
Forward
Jonathan Granström - 14
Noel Blanchet - 5
Rock Strongo - 5
Defense
Arsene Leclerc - 9
Ben Jammin - 7
Adelie de Pengu - 4
Goalie
Mat Smith - 15
Elizabeth Doyle - 5
Base Pack - 4
Knockout Rounds and Medals
With the round robin and awards completed, the first knockout round saw
vs , 
vs 
, 
vs , and 
vs . The first matchup saw the lower ranked Finland beat Austria 4-2 to advance and the lower ranked Canada beat out Russia 3-2, while both top teams Sweden and Norway made short work of their opponents 4-1 and 3-0.The semifinals saw
facing and facing . Canada made short work of the Swedes with 5 unanswered goals beginning late in the first after Sweden going up 0-2. The other semifinal proved much tighter as it took an overtime period for Lemo Pihl () to solve Kavanaugh for the second time and advance Finland to the gold medal game. Mat Smith saved 33 shots in that game!The Norwegians felt more hungry for a medal during the bronze medal game (new FHM8 feature) and Kavanaugh wanted to avenge the loss in the semis stopping 32 out of 34 shots while the Norwegian offense exploded with 7 goals.
The gold medal game between
and was again decided in overtime. Finland got the go ahead goal midway through the third period but Canada tied it back up with just over three minutes to go. Unfortunately for them, Valtterri Kauppinen () beat Damien Vertigo for the game winning, gold medal goal returning the gold to Finland for the third time in five seasons.Congratulations to all teams for their success in the medal rounds!
Gold Medal Winner: Team Finland! Silver Medal Winner: Team Canada! Bronze Medal Winner: Team Norway! IIHF Rankings
The biggest changes in the IIHF Rankings as a result of this season's tournament is seen in Austria (jumping 7 spots to 7th), Great Britain (dropping 6 spots to 12th) and Norway (jumping 6 spots to 4th). Finland takes over the first place from Canada with their strong round robin showing and the gold medal win while Sweden slots into 2nd even though they lost out on the bronze medal.
Code:
980 wordsRE: S66 IIHF Tournament Recap and Awards - WannabeFinn - 09-14-2022
Good recap
RE: S66 IIHF Tournament Recap and Awards - Anthique - 09-14-2022
RE: S66 IIHF Tournament Recap and Awards - lilstifler - 09-14-2022
This was nice tournament! IIHF getting more and more interesting!
RE: S66 IIHF Tournament Recap and Awards - The__Y-man__100 - 09-14-2022
Great write up!