Ice Hockey World Championships | Pucks bounce on superstar Mikko Rantanen’s stage: “There’s some pressure there now”

Sport|Ice Hockey World Championships

Tampere

Lions suffered a 1-2 hard-fought loss to Sweden in Monday night’s struggle for hegemony. Thus, the first World Cup home win from the western neighbor in history was still waiting.

Finland clearly dominated the match, especially in the opening set, but Sweden’s keeper was the hero Lars Johansson35, was devilishly hard to pass.

“Tough game. Sweden defends the center well. We maybe lacked a bit of composure in the attacking game. Maybe we tried to force it a bit in the middle. A few times myself”, Mikko Rantanen said.

“There were again places to score the necessary goals, but now there is some pressure. You have to be relaxed,” Rantanen continued.

of the World Cup Rantanen, who plays in Tampere with the status of the biggest star, has not yet got his engines running properly, except for the dominating triple set in the Germany game.

The points balance in Rantanen’s first three – and at the same time hardest – group matches was 0+2.

Against Sweden, the pucks bounced confusingly on Rantanen’s stage. The superstar was far from his best.

“It’s like that sometimes. We’re trying to get extra focus so that it doesn’t bounce,” Rantanen stated.

Rantanen has seemed very relaxed outside the rink at the beginning of the WC tournament. After Monday night’s loss, however, he was visibly disappointed.

“I haven’t taken it too easy. Yes, I think I do quite a lot of work and defend. I go both ways, hard, to the skin and to the tackle.”

“Today there were places again. Even in that (Ville) Buck scored a goal from behind, yes you should score a goal there. In places like that, maybe you need a little mental sharpness and a stronger racket, so let’s put the puck in the backpack.”

Rantase was asked if the reason for the bounce of the puck was in the ice, which has been criticized at least from the Swedish camp.

“It’s the same for both of them. Maybe it’s a bit soft, but that’s no excuse. If the ice is bad, you have to play more simply.”

Rantanen reminded after the match about the nature of the World Cup tournament. Although the Lions have lost two of their three matches, they don’t matter much in the big picture, if they only reach the top four in the group, i.e. the quarterfinals.

“There is still a lot of time here. The most important games don’t start until next week. But, of course, we should win here in order to get a good group position. But one game and one change at a time, I’m moving forward myself. Yes, I believe that it will definitely get better,” Rantanen said.

Finland’s tournament continues on Wednesday at 20:20 with a match against France.

With two defeats, Finland’s road to winning the group is starting to be rocky. It probably means that in the quarter-finals, one of the three tough teams in Group B would face off: Canada, the Czech Republic or Switzerland.