MONTREAL — Canada has been having a years-long national debate over the depth and quality of its goaltending, and this 4 Nations Face-Off has brought that debate to the fore.
But Canada’s goaltending is not the most overmatched position group in this tournament. Not even close.
That would be Finland’s defense corps, a group that lost Miro Heiskanen, Jani Hakanpää and, just before the start of the tournament, Rasmus Ristolainen to injury. Even with those guys, this would be the most unheralded group of defensemen in the tournament. But without them?
Things get very thin, very quickly for Finland on the blue line.
Finland coach Antti Pennanen revealed his line combinations at his first full practice Tuesday, and while Finland looks like a solid two-way team up front, the defense looks a bit out of place at a tournament like this.
We’re going to guess Esa Lindell and Niko Mikkola will be logging a lot of minutes on this blue line, and that they are likely to become bigger names around the league as a result. Among NHL defensemen who have played at least 800 minutes at five-on-five this season, only four have been on the ice for fewer goals against per 60 minutes of ice time than Mikkola, and only 10 have been on the ice for fewer actual goals against per 60 than Lindell.
“We’ll just play defense harder and prove to everybody that we can win. I think we can win against everybody here,” Mikkola said. “Every game is an opportunity to show what you’ve got. Losing Miro, he’s obviously a big part of our team, and Risto also, but we’ve got the guys who can step up. We just need to play as a team and support each other.”
After the second pair of Juuso Välimäki and Olli Määttä, it is unclear what the third pairing will look like, though it is likely to be made up of Urho Vaakanainen and Henri Jokiharju, with Nikolas Matinpalo as an extra.
Matinpalo found out Saturday night after the Ottawa Senators’ 5-1 loss at the Florida Panthers that he would be the one replacing Ristolainen.
Though Finland GM Jere Lehtinen hadn’t told Matinpalo to stay ready, he could figure it out pretty easily on his own — despite averaging just 12 minutes a game for the Senators this season, when he’s able to get in the lineup.
“No, they didn’t tell me anything,” Matinpalo said. “But I knew a little bit because we don’t really have Finnish D-men in the NHL right now.”
Which brings us back to the comparison with Canadian goaltending. Where are all the Finnish defensemen? Is there a similar positional crisis happening in Finland to the one in goal in Canada?
In the past two NHL drafts, there were 33 players drafted out of Finland, and 10 of those players were defensemen. But only one, 2024 New York Islanders draft pick Jesse Pulkkinen, was taken in the first two rounds, and he was drafted 54th overall. Six of the 10 Finnish defensemen drafted in the last two years were taken in the fifth round or later.
The last time a Finnish defenseman was drafted in the first round was in 2019, when the Senators took Lassi Thomson at No. 19 overall and the Winnipeg Jets took Ville Heinola one pick later.
Heinola is the only Finnish defenseman to have played an NHL game this season that was not at some point on the Finland roster for 4 Nations, while Thomson went back to Europe this season to play in Sweden.
“Of course, we’d like to have more,” Lehtinen said Tuesday. “We have this year and in the past years a lot of AHL defensemen playing and they’re trying to make the NHL. We all know there’s only six that can play (on one team) and that’s why it’s tough.
“But of course, we have to look at how we do things back home, and we’ve been doing that, and hope we can turn that around in the next years.”
The last star defenseman to come out of Finland was Heiskanen, taken No. 3 overall by the Dallas Stars in 2017 — one of six Finns to go in the first round, including four defensemen.
The next Finnish defenseman drafted that year was Välimäki, taken at No. 16 by the Calgary Flames, and he came to the defense of his country’s, well, defense.
“It’s easy to compare it to the U.S. or Canada, but you look at the population — there are states in the U.S. that have more people than our whole country — so obviously that comes into it a little bit,” Välimäki said. “I think the numbers are growing, and overall as Finnish players, we’re getting more and more over here. We’re obviously doing something right developing hockey players. I think right now it’s just a little bit of — we’ve got lots of guys in the (AHL), lots of guys in junior, lots of guys coming up.
“We have a lot of good forwards who were left out of this tournament that are in the league. We’ve always had good goalies. I guess defensemen, compared to those other two positions and the other countries, is a little low right now. I don’t think it’s a concern for us, I don’t think it’s going to be forever. We’re just going to keep getting better and getting more guys.”
Speaking of goalies …
Pennanen refused to confirm who his goaltender would be for Finland’s opening game against the United States on Thursday.
This, as Välimäki mentioned, has long been a Finnish strength, and for this cycle — including the Olympics next year — it would be easy to look at Nashville Predators goalie Juuse Saros as the clear No. 1.
Which is what made Pennanen’s refusal to name him the starter somewhat curious.
Saros’ competition is Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen of the Buffalo Sabres and Kevin Lankinen of the Vancouver Canucks.
If you consider goals saved above expected (GSAx) to be a good measure of a goaltender’s value, Lankinen is far ahead of the Finnish pack at 7.32 and is the only one of the three who is in the black in that category, according to Evolving Hockey.
Saros is at minus-3.54 this season, 66th in the NHL.
It’s been a difficult season in Nashville, no doubt, and Saros is hoping this tournament can help get his season with the Predators back on track.
“It hasn’t been easy, so it’s nice to get some different atmosphere, a different group of guys and just focus on this, for now,” Saros said. “So yeah, I’ve been really looking forward to this.”
It would still be surprising to see Finland not go with Saros in the opener Thursday — he finished top-5 in Vezina voting three years in a row between 2022 and 2024 and has a career .915 save percentage with the Predators.
It would probably be just as surprising to his teammates.
When asked for his prediction of who would win tournament MVP if Finland were to win the 4 Nations, Roope Hintz didn’t hesitate very long. He chose Saros.
Patrik Laine’s play with the Canadiens has fallen off of late. He hopes to reset his game with Team Finland. (Gregory Shamus / Getty Images)
Laine watch
The Montreal Canadiens don’t have too many representatives playing in their home building in this tournament. Samuel Montembeault is fighting to be the backup for Team Canada, and then there’s Joel Armia and Patrik Laine on Finland.
Laine is coming off a brutal stretch for the Canadiens, getting benched for all but one shift in the third period of a loss in Anaheim on Feb. 2 and subsequently being demoted to the fourth line, where he was playing with Armia and getting roughly 12 minutes a night of ice time.
After scoring 12 goals and six assists in his first 20 games with the Canadiens, Laine entered the 4 Nations break without a point in his last eight games.
Playing with Hintz and Sebastian Aho leads Laine to believe ice time will be going up with Team Finland.
“To be able to get on the ice a little more definitely helps,” Laine said. “That’s been kind of limited the past couple of weeks, but with the guys I’m playing with here, I’m definitely going to see more ice time. So that’s going to help, obviously.
“It’s hard to get going when you’ve not been able to perform. I think it will be a good turning point, just to play good here, gain confidence and keep it going with the team for the rest of the year.”
OK, but Laine should know he might have a short leash in this tournament as well.
When Pennanen was asked about Laine on Tuesday about how his five-on-five game has not been sharp and how he saw Laine helping Finland more generally, there was a long pause before he answered.
“Ya,” Pennanen began.
Then another pause.
“We know that he has been struggling lately, but we spoke with him yesterday and he was highly motivated to be part of the Finnish national team,” Pennanen said. “Every time he has been part of the Finnish national team, he has played really well. And now he is playing with Aho and Hintz, they can skate with the puck and they can play at a high speed, so I hope that is going to help Laine to play with a high speed also.”
To be clear, Laine knows he has had a role to play in his reduced ice time. He wasn’t complaining, just stating the fact that he wasn’t playing as much.
“I haven’t been able to perform like I probably should, so I understand why I haven’t been playing as much as normally,” he said. “At that point, you’ve got to take a look in the mirror as well, you’ve got to put in the work and make things happen. But sometimes it is a little tough.
“I feel like now this will be a good turning point to get some confidence back and get some boost for the rest of the year.”
(Top photo of Nikolas Matinpalo: Minas Panagiotakis / Getty Images)
