Leading up to the 4 Nations Faceoff tournament, every country had at least one player originally named to the roster back out due to injury.
In the case of Finland, they had three players bow out – all of them being defensemen. Jani Hakanpaa, Miro Heiskanen and Rasmus Ristolainen were all not available for the tournament due to injury. On an already shallow Finland defense corps, it has proven to be costly early on.
On the heels of a 6-1 drubbing defeat to USA, Finland’s glaring weakness ultimately sunk them: their defense. Struggling to contain a relentless, heavy, and effective forecheck by the Americans, the Finnish blueline was under the microscope (for all the wrong reasons) the entire game.
“They…