BROSSARD, Quebec – Team Finland coach Antti Pennanen confirmed Monday that Carolina Hurricanes forward Mikko Rantanen would be ready to play by his team’s 4 Nations Face-Off debut against Team USA on Thursday.
There was some question about Rantanen’s availability after he missed Carolina’s final game before the tournament Saturday at home against Utah HC with a lower-body injury. Losing Rantanen would have been a heavy blow to a Finnish team lacking the same firepower as their three rivals at this tournament – his 66 points in 55 games is easily the best on the team, 11 points clear of his Hurricanes teammate Sebastian Aho.
Rantanen has not been much of a difference-maker since coming over to the Hurricanes in a Jan. 24 trade with the Colorado Avalanche with one goal and one assist on 21 shots on goal in six games.
Aho said it’s been a big adjustment for his close friend and hopes the break for this tournament will allow Rantanen to reset and get back to Carolina with a new mindset.
“It’s a big life change — fortunately I haven’t gone through that, but I heard it’s quite a shock,” Aho said. “I think this could be a good opportunity to reset, and after the tournament we go back and I don’t think we have too much time, but either way, this could be a good mental break from all that business side and just play and go from there.”
Having a productive 4 Nations tournament could only help in that regard.
How they lined up
We have no idea.
While Team Canada, Team USA and Team Sweden each held full practices at the Montreal Canadiens’ suburban practice facility Monday, with each of them showing line combinations and defense pairings, Finland did not.
Because of course they didn’t. Finland does things its own way, generally, and was no different Monday.
Only 11 skaters took the ice with two of the three goalies for Finland as they gave players the option not to skate. Captain Aleksander Barkov took the ice along with Aho, one of his alternate captains. They were joined by defensemen Henri Jokiharju, Urho Vaakanainen, Juuso Välimäki and Nikolas Matinpalo, who was added to the team Sunday after Rasmus Ristolainen pulled out of the tournament with an upper body injury. Forwards Arturri Lehkonen, Anton Lundell, Eetu Luostarainen, Kaapo Kakko and Erik Haula also skated for Finland, along with goalies Juuse Saros and Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen.
Even Pennanen stayed off the ice.
Those who took the ice ran through a few simple drills, pretty casually, and were off the ice less than 30 minutes after the skate began, a stark contrast to the three previous practices held Monday.
“We wanted to save energy for the games and today was kind of a recovery/practice day,” Pennanen said.
It’s an interesting strategic move in such a short tournament where finding chemistry in combinations quickly is of vital importance. But this is also Finland, where team chemistry seems to course through the veins of its players, many of whom have played together on national teams in the past.
“We have two practices and a morning skate,” Aho said, “so hopefully this is exactly the plan that we need to go against USA and going forward.”
A decimated blue line and a secret plan (or two)
Finland has lost defensemen Ristolainen, Miro Heiskanen and Jani Hakanpää from the original roster it announced due to injury, at a position Finland was already extremely thin at.
In fact, Ville Heinola of the Winnipeg Jets is the only Finnish defenseman to have played a game in the NHL this season who was not at some point on the Finland roster.
“Yeah it was (such a) sad situation for Miro, and for Dallas,” Pennanen said. “He’s a really good hockey player. But now we have a plan of how we’re going to fix that, especially the power play. But you’re going to see that.”
That was Pennanen’s version of gamesmanship.
So, that’s one secret plan to handle the shortfall on defense. But there could be another one.
Barkov recalled how he’s taken a shift on defense on two separate occasions for the Florida Panthers, once last season against the Canadiens and one the prior season against the Boston Bruins. He believes they were both on the penalty kill when the Panthers had a defenseman or two in the penalty box.
He joked that he’s let Panthers coach Paul Maurice know he’s available if necessary.
“Whenever he needs me to play on D,” he said, “I’m ready.”
Barkov did not seem to realize the reason he was being asked was because of Finland’s tenuous situation on the blue line. If a defenseman were to go down, they would be left with Heinola as their only option. And then … maybe Barkov?
“Let’s hope not,” he said.
An inside view on the Rantanen trade
Aho was asked a lot about the Rantanen trade to Carolina, especially since Rantanen was not made available to the media since he did not take the ice Monday. He mentioned how perhaps a week prior to the trade, he was asked some questions about Rantanen by someone in the Hurricanes front office.
Aho said he didn’t think much of it, but he did call Rantanen to see if there was a possibility of him being traded, and Rantanen told him he had just finished talking to his agent and yes, it was a possibility.
But then Aho didn’t really think about it a whole lot.
But then this tweet was thrown into the Hurricanes’ group chat on the evening of Jan. 24 with the team in the New York area, preparing to face the Islanders the following day.
Mikko Rantanen is going to from Colorado to Carolina
— Elliotte Friedman (@FriedgeHNIC) January 25, 2025
What made that funny was Aho was telling Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman that was how he and the rest of the Hurricanes players found out about the trade.
“It was your tweet,” he said.
Aho called Rantanen right away.
“I was probably one of 150 missed calls he had that night,” Aho said.
He did eventually get hold of Rantanen, who confirmed the report that he was heading to Carolina.
As for what Aho has done to convince Rantanen, an impending unrestricted free agent, to sign a contract extension with the Hurricanes, he said it’s been such a whirlwind that the contract situation has not come up.
“I am pretty close with him, so we’ve talked about a lot of stuff and I obviously tried to help him,” Aho said. “For him, he’s coming to a new team, a new city, everything’s new, he didn’t have a place, so just try to be there as a friend and help in any way you can. Obviously on the ice you’re trying to quickly build some chemistry and go over all the stuff. And then we play basically every day, so there’s not a lot of time for that stuff.”
Finland doesn’t play until Thursday here at the 4 Nations. The team will be in Montreal all week. There should be some downtime.
Maybe it’s a perfect time for Aho to make his Hurricanes pitch.
(Photo of Sebastian Aho heading into the rink: Vitor Munhoz / 4NFO / World Cup of Hockey via Getty Images)
