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*JURT* · 08-16-2021, 01:59 PM

As the IIHF and WJC tournaments are hitting their stride and soon entering their respective elimination rounds, Finland finds itself in a great position in both tournaments. They were the longest undefeated team in the IIHF tournament and sit atop Group B and the General Standings in the WJC with a great record of 5 regulation wins, 2 OT/SO wins, 1 loss and 1 OT/SO loss.

Yet, things are looking bleak for the great nation of Finland and its future. This is the first IIHF tournament of the FHM era in which Finland has cause to be cautiously optimistic, at this point in time at least. Furthermmore, despite winning four medals in the last five tournaments, two of them being the champion's gold and the other two being one of each for silver and bronze, these medals all carry an important asterisk: over the timespan in which these medals have been won, the number of players actually from Finland is dwindling and the country is approaching non-existence at an alarming rate.

Let's take a look into every position and what are Finland's main needs in the next few seasons.
IIHF Roster
WJC Roster

Name	Position	Season	TPE	Active
Harry Carpet	G	47	1983	TRUE
White Goodman	G	51	1474	TRUE
Mat Smith	G	56	1224	TRUE
Hugo Grönroos	G	57	612	TRUE
Olof Karsikko	G	60	481	TRUE
Ragnar-Alexandre Ragnarsson-Tremblay	G	56	409	TRUE
Meek Keprosoft*	G	61	279	TRUE
Jason Voorhees	G	53	169	FALSE

*Plays for team Young Guns

Unsurprisingly, goalies aren't where the problem lies for Finland. Considering there is already a goalie logjam in the SHL which now has 20 teams, it's only normal that a 14 teams tournament like the IIHF wouldn't have teams in need of better goaltending. The starting goalie right now is co-Head Harry Carpet and his back-up is White Goodman. Both are regressing and Carpet's TPE numbers are quite astounding for a player of his class, but even he won't be around forever. That shouldn't be a problem, as Mat Smith will grow into the role in good time. The multi-medalist at the World Junior Championship level and starter for the Chicago Syndicate should start seeing some international action again sooner than later as he is likely to pass Goodman in terms of skill and get the backup role in preparation to take over for Carpet.

If Smith is the obvious choice to become Starter in the medium-term, the backup situation is not as clear. Hugo Grönroos could grow into a good backup for Smith, but we should be on the lookout for the fast progression of young goalies Olof Karsikko and Meeka Keprosoft. Carpet must not be taken out of the equation either, it's possible that he stays around as a backup for some time even after Smith takes the #1 role. If that's the case, it's likely that Grönroos never sees any playing time before Karsikko or Keeprosoft passes him. If I had to bet on either of those, it would be Karsikko.

Karsikko is likely the longer-term solution too. He's doing a great job so far at the World Junior Championship and is earning at a much higher rate than Keeprosoft. It's still early to tell, to be sure, but all things considered Finland is in great shape for a long time at the Goalie position.

Name	Position	Season	TPE	Active
Kaarlo Kekkonen	F	51	2174	TRUE
Michael Fitted	F	50	1920	TRUE
Jaska Seppälä	F	53	1774	TRUE
Zoltan Topalo	F	53	1765	TRUE
Josef Kubinec	F	47	1617	TRUE
Jean-Uhtred Ragnarsson-Tremblay	F	54	1567	TRUE
Walton Stromberg	F	55	1455	TRUE
Jax Aittokallio	F	43	1398	TRUE
Valtterri Kauppinen	F	56	1258	TRUE
Lemo Pihl	F	56	1239	TRUE
William Salming	F	56	1182	TRUE
SLATT Potts	F	52	1136	TRUE
Kaapo Kampainen	F	57	998	TRUE
Jarmo Kekäläinen	F	57	888	TRUE
Eero Makinen Jr.	F	56	657	TRUE
KEKW Kekkonen	F	59	637	TRUE
Ville Kurri	F	59	613	TRUE
Tokkulu Lakkamaa	F	57	494	FALSE
Grant Thurber	F	52	247	FALSE
Ebenezer Virtanen	F	51	232	FALSE
Randen Skog	F	54	208	FALSE
Miro Slapskinnenen	F	53	199	FALSE
Biggs Secksy	F	55	192	FALSE
Ville Virta	F	51	167	FALSE
Zach Washington	F	59	162	FALSE
Sami Söderberg	F	61	155	FALSE

There's currently not a problem per se with Finland's forwards. Although not as good on paper as most other countries, the roster playing in the IIHF tournament right now is complete and made of actives with over 1000 TPE. But the chart doesn't run very deep. Jax Aittokallio and Joseph Kubinec have already announced their imminent retirement, they are only going to be around for one more run before hanging them up. Fitted is also not getting any younger, and Potts is about to hit regression on a low TPE count for someone who is currently in his peak.

Kampainen, Kekkalainen, Kekkonnen and Kurri will all be good options to patch these holes for short and middle term, although some of them might have to come in at an early age and lower TPE levels than some players who don't even make the cut for other nations, which will make things even more difficult for Finland has they have been of late.

In the long term, the forward position might be the hardest one to deal with. The team needs a lot of forwards and very few new creates are joining Finland. Over the 5 more recent draft classes (including the current S62 one), there were four new forwards: none in S58, three in S59, none in S60, one in S61 and none right now in S62. Of those, only the two from S59 that have been mentioned earlier (Kekkonen and Kurri) are still active. This obviously has repercussions on the WJC roster as Finand had to fill the roster with leftovers from other countries all over the place. They will need to get busy recruiting to field a roster of their own if they don't want to end up dissolved or mashed into a coalition team with other countries, god forbid that it be these stinky Swedes.

Name	Position	Season	TPE	Active
Björn Leppänen	D	50	2093	TRUE
Jukka Timonen	D	53	1858	TRUE
Aumy Jr.	D	54	1591	TRUE
Igor Victory	D	55	1392	TRUE
Jules Watt	D	46	841	TRUE
Eero Makela	D	59	614	TRUE
Tinke Jutila	D	54	567	TRUE
Janne Virtanen	D	59	483	TRUE
Poopity Scoop	D	44	990	FALSE
Bradley Barkov	D	53	854	FALSE
Jari Heikkinen	D	57	713	FALSE
Blip Blop	D	55	157	FALSE

Defense is where the main problem is. Finland already has to play two sub-1000 TPE defencemen this season, one of which is inactive. The other one has just retired. Only two players are in the system : Eero Makela who's a good earner and Janne Virtanen who's on the lower end of that class. Both will likely have to make the jump very soon: Makela is likely to see some playing time in the IIHF as soon as he graduates from the SMJHL and Virtanen should come in the one after that, depending on how he keeps earning and whether the GMs prefer using an IA with higher TPE like Barkov when he gets there, as Scoop's regression will render him useless before long.

On the long term side of things, there's a clear need for more defensemen created in Finland, the two aforementioned being the only two to create in the 5 most recent classes. Just like with forwards, that means a lot of playing time in the WJC that goes towards borrowed players and at some point it's going to impact the IIHF team.

In the end, Finland will keep going on and be happy to welcome every player that comes in on a loan for the WJC (and getting them medals before they go back to their medal-less county), but to ensure a healthy roster at the IIHF level in the long run they will need some more players to join their great nation in the next few seasons.

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2076 words (including stats), 1096 words excluding stats. Not sure how this gets graded but please consider that the forum's native tables are a bitch to format. 2x draft media.