3 Takeaways From Finland’s 8-0 Win Over Latvia

This game against Finland doesn’t represent how much Latvia has improved their hockey team. The Latvians are still those middle-of-the-pack ragtag youngsters with nothing to lose, and they’ll give you a fight. They were going 100%, and unfortunately for them, it wasn’t enough, and the execution just wasn’t there.

Losing 8-0 is difficult for a professional hockey team, let alone a team of kids, so it’ll be tough to recover from this mentally. However, Latvia took Canada to overtime, and they should take a look at that and use a struggling Denmark team to get back on track.

A Bad Look for Canada

Latvia took Canada past 60 minutes, and Michael Hage had to sneak out a win for the Canadians in overtime. The day after, Finland, another serious gold medal contender, comes out and skates laps around Latvia, and nearly scores ten goals.

This just shows that Canada needs to take it up another notch, and it puts a lot of doubt into the fans whether this is truly a golden team. No one is bought on this crew yet because of this reason. They refuse to play the game along the wall and just try to chip it up the middle of the ice, where it’s stolen. From there, Latvia takes over and gets in their wheelhouse; that’s their game.

The defense and physicality overall throughout the tournament have been lackluster. Canada needs to make some adjustments, and fast, because they play Finland, who just routed Latvia, on New Year’s Eve in a couple of days.

Finland Are Gold Medal Favorites

Finland are officially gold medal favorites after this win. In their first two games, they have scored a total of 14 goals. Emil Hemming had a two-goal game against Latvia. The Finns are on fire, and if they go on to beat Czechia, the case might be sealed. No one can adapt defensively to Finland’s offense, which slaps you in the face along the boards and wears you out.

At one point, Finland had Latvia in their own zone for a whole minute and a half, and more than two minutes if you count the little detour where the Latvians were able to get one skater off the ice. Their puck control and passing were perfect, always moving the puck, and nobody was standing still the whole time; they scored a goal at the end of it.

Finland capitalized on all of Latvia’s turnovers and played up against the wall the entire time. They park their defensemen in the neutral zone, and it’s tough to get around them. By the end of the second period, the shots on goal were 25 for Finland and only four for Latvia (two in the first period). Their systems work with the players they have, and the goaltending of Petteri Rimpinen caps it all off.

To come out and beat a Latvian team full of confidence after they played Canada so well is truly an impressive feat. Their first true test will be against Czechia, who dominated Denmark in their last game. It’ll be an important clash, as both are gold medal contenders. But right now, the Finns look like the best team in the tournament.