Finland wins a very one sided hockey game

14 May 2012 | Mika Leino

Team Finland got back on track with their play by beating Kazakhstan 4-1. Not very effective scoring and goalie Vitali Kolesnik kept the goal figures pretty small.

Allthough Finland's opponent was "only" Kazakhstan, which will relegate from group A tournament, was Finland's play certainly some kind of relief for Coach Jukka Jalonen after a devastating game against USA. Game against Kazakhstan was from very first minute to the end furious pressuring by Finns. Every line pushed Kazakhs back to their own zone and created scoring chances. Shots in the game were 48-18 for Finland.

Despite the fact that every Finnish line could produce scoring chances Koivu's line was the only one who could score. Valteri Filppula scored two goals (and two assists), Jokinen one goal and one goal was scored by defender Mikko Mäenpää when Koivu's line was playing power play.

Kazakhstan was forced to take a lot of penalties under pressure, totally nine penalties, and Finland scored all their goals on power play. Also Finland took five penalties, but those came more or less accidentally when trying a bit too much.

"We played today very energic and especially first and second period were very good from us today", said Finnish coach Jukka Jalonen. "Our game looked now that kind of play what it should be".

Kazakhstan's offensive play was very poor today. Or let us say Finland didn't give a chance to them. Only goal came on power play via nice shot from Konstantin Pushkaryov.

Finland found its game quickly again after terrible game against USA. There are still lot of points that certainly worry coach Jalonen like for example scoring from other lines than Koivu's. Second line Granlund-Immonen-Pesonen was still pretty lame and Granlund was even benched in the second period for a while.

Most likely Finland and USA will meet again Thursday in quarterfinals and there it is very interesting to see if Finland has learned their lesson.