Ville Koivunen expressed an interest in going to the World Championship last month toward the NHL regular season, telling the Finnish outlet Iltalehti, “Of course I’d be interested if I could wear the Lions’ shirt. I’ve been watching the national team since I was a little boy.”
Finland’s initial roster isn’t exceptionally deep at forward, with the Kraken’s Eeli Tolvanen, Rangers’ Juuso Pärssinen and Blackhawks’ Teuvo Teräväinen being the lone forward selections from NHL teams.
Koivunen, apparently, still won’t make the cut. Finland’s head coach Antti Pennanen told Finnish outlet MTV Urheilu this week that “I know Ville well, and he is a very talented player,” but there are “always a variety of reasons” behind the roster decisions they make, and not extending an invitation to Koivunen was one of those decisions.
The biggest reason for leaving Koivunen at home, Pennanen explained, is trying to build a team with assigned roles. Evidently, Finland’s staff believes it has better players who can play Koivunen’s “role,” and didn’t need any more.
Koivunen and Valtteri Puustinen weren’t even invited to play in the Euro Hockey Tour, a smaller tournament that is used as part of the final evaluation process for building the roster. Joona Koppanen, who obviously serves a different “role” than that Koivunen and Puustinen, was the only Penguin on Finland’s roster for the EHT, but didn’t ultimately make the final roster for Worlds.