Mikko Rantanen was pretty invisible for Team Finland until the Dallas Stars forward sealed their 4-1 win over Sweden with an emphatic empty net goal.
Rantanen played once again with Stars teammate Roope Hintz and Anaheim forward and former teammate Mikael Granlund. Granlund, the captain for Team Finland, was traded to Dallas last February and played on a line with Rantanen and Hintz for most of his tenure with the Stars. For Finland, it was a no-brainer to put the trio back together.
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Their line was not overly effective for most of the game, however. Hintz and Rantanen both took minor penalties, with Sweden scoring on Rantanen’s penalty. Hintz laid a big hit on Phillip Broberg, the St. Louis defenseman, that appeared to injure Broberg’s shoulder. Rantanen was the recipient of a big hit courtesy of Tampa Bay’s Victor Hedman. But when the game was on the line, Granlund found Rantanen for the dagger into Sweden’s comeback hopes.
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Finland had lost their opener 4-1 to a shockingly strong looking Slovakia. Despite no one being eliminated after the round robin group play, Finland needed to flip the script and had to do it against their biggest rival.
A big part of the turnaround and why Sweden only scored one goal was the play of Finland’s top defensive pair, who are also the Stars top defensive pair. Miro Heiskanen and Esa Lindell led all players by a huge margin in time on ice, with Lindell topping out over 28 minutes and Heiskanen just under that mark. Along with the great play of Nashville Predators goaltender Juuse Saros, Finland shut down the well balanced threatening offense from Sweden.
Anton Lundell helped out with a goal and also cleared a would-be goal from the defensive crease as it was hurtling towards the back of the net. Joel Armia scored a crucial short-handed goal for Finland and a surprising goal from seventh defenseman Nikolas Matinpalo opened the scoring. Sweden’s only goal came from Rasmus Dahlin, who has four points from the first two games.
With such a massive presence of Stars players at the top of Finland’s roster, Finland will certainly succeed if the Dallas contingency pulls their weight. The Finns are defending their gold medal from a non-NHL represented Olympic competition four years ago in Beijing, and will conclude their opening round against Italy before moving towards the knockout round.