This is the third part of my 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics roster prediction series. We have covered Sweden and Russia so far (link at the bottom of the article). Today we will be covering one of the “dogfight” countries in my opinion. It’s a country that if the “Big 4” countries don’t play their best game against, they can surely find themselves on the wrong end of the game. Today we will be covering Finland.
Finland has good, possibly even great forwards. Other than that, they don’t have much on the roster that really excites them. Unfortunately for a best-on-best tournament. This is a very young team and likely will come into their own around the 2026-2030 tournaments. Finland has participated in 16 Winter Games, medaling a total of 6 times. 2 silvers and 4 bronzes. The good news for them, recency bias is in their favor. Grabbing a medal in 5 of the last 7 Winter Games.
It’ll be up to their very strong forwards to produce, oddly enough, defensively. If Finland is going to go far in this year’s Olympics. They are likely destined to at the very least contend for a medal, but I don’t think they have the horses to win gold.
Left Wing
Teuvo Teravainen
Roope Hintz
Joonas Donskoi
Eeli Tolvanen
Center
Aleksander Barkov
Sebastian Aho
Mikael Granlund
Jesperi Kotkaniemi
Right Wing
Miiko Rantanen
Patrik Laine
Kasperi Kapanen
Jesse Puljujarvi
Kaapo Kakko
Left Defense
Esa Lindell
Juuso Valimaki
Miro Heiskanen
Olli Maatta
Right Defense
Henri Jokiharju
Jani Hakanpaa
Markus Nutivaara
Goalies
Tuukka Rask
Juuse Saros
Antti Raanta
They surely aren’t a favorite going in per se. Finland will be relying on their forwards and goaltending once again to carry them deep into the tournament. They have a couple of great defensemen, but it is surely their weak point going into the tournament. Finland is a scrappy team that makes you fight for every inch on the ice and they will not let you outwork them. As stated, they are one of the teams that makes you put out your best effort.
Part 1 of the 2022 Olympic Prediction Series | Sweden: https://12ozsportsradio.com/projecting-swedens-2022-olympic-roster/
Part 2 of the 2022 Olympic Prediction Series | Russia: https://12ozsportsradio.com/projecting-russias-2022-olympic-roster/
