* Jussi Jokinen was garbage. He made a total of three succesful plays with the puck over the entire game; every other time his play resulted in a turnover. I wish someone would tell me what coaches and GMs see in this guy that neither his play on the ice or his stats show. Mikko Koivu's points came on special teams; the second line of Ruutu-Koivu-Jokinen couldn't generate anything sensible with the puck, mainly because Jokinen was so completely out of it. His only real contribution to the game was a first period dive that the refs fell for and called a German penalty on.
* Bäckström gave up a rebound on almost every shot.
* The Finnish defence was rubbish. Luoma, Niskala, Niemi and Salmela all took stupid penalties in their own end, and they couldn't clear Bäckström's rebounds. A more offensively skilled team would have had plenty of chances on net.
On the plus side, the number one power play unit looks great, and Teemu Selänne looks as dangerous as ever. I still think Finland's offense will carry them through the first round with ease, but the trouble will start with USA and Canada. The D are going to be in serious trouble with the North American teams.
As a general observation, games at this year's world champs are definitely not being called down the line by the refs. In today's and yesterday's games, the underdog team was getting way more penalties than the better-ranked one because the refs had different standards. As an isolated instance that annoyed me, Denmark went ahead 2-1 against the Czechs on Jannik Hansen's brilliant goal, but the Czechs got the equalizer almost immediately on a penalty called on a blatant dive. The same thing went on with Germany today; Finnish players got away with a lot more than the Germans did. It's disappointing to see double standards of officiating on this level; the underdog teams have a hard enough time playing against the giants even without the ice being tilted.
As a final thought, you have to admit Finland's 5-1 win over Germany looks much more impressive when you consider who was coaching Team Germany:
Clark Kent.
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