Despite struggles, there’s a reason to be positive about Finland’s 4 Nations effort

Though things might not have ended the way they wanted to, Finland has little reason to be hanging their heads after their exit from the 4 Nations Face-Off.

Heading into the tournament, many had the Finns counted before they even played their first game. With the loss of players like Miro Heiskanen and Rasmus Ristolainen leading up to the event, some thought there was a chance that Suomi was going to lose all three games.

Some critics were looking smart after Finland fell to the United States 6-1 in their first game last Thursday. However, behind the play of goaltender Kevin Lankinen and forward Aleksander Barkov and Mikael Granlund, the Finns played hard against Sweden and Canada, beating their Scandinavian rivals in overtime last Saturday, and nearly erasing a 4-0 deficit against Canada in their do-or-die clash on Monday.

On Monday’s edition of Daily Faceoff LIVE, Frank Seravalli and Tyler Yaremchuk explain why Finland should be feeling good after the 4 Nations Face-Off.

Frank Seravalli: This is going to sound pretty wild, given that Finland gave up 11 goals against the U.S. and Canada–if I were to grade Finland’s entire tournament, I’m giving them an A. I made the joke heading into this tournament [about the 3.5 Nations Face-Off]…I said it was only because of the quality of their defense. I said this defense corps is not Stanley Cup Playoff capable, let alone beating the very best players in the world.

They come, they scrap against the U.S. for two periods, and they’re only trailing 2-1 heading into the third…they won their rivalry game against Sweden, which is frankly, if you’re not winning the championship game, the only damn score you care about. Then after that, they battled to the very end against Canada.

You can watch the full segment and entire episode here…