TORONTO – Patrik Laine thought he had him beat.
It was the first period here at the Air Canada Centre on Tuesday afternoon, and the 18-year-old who’s never played a game in the NHL had just put the puck between his legs and dangled his way past two-time Norris Trophy winner Erik Karlsson as though the Ottawa Senators captain was standing still.
Then came Laine’s shot from that left wing, labelled for the top right corner of the net.
But Henrik Lundqvist—for one of 36 times in this round-robin matchup between the long-time rivals—got in the way.
“I think it hit his shoulder,” Laine said following Finland’s 2-0 loss to Sweden, which included an empty netter. “That was a good save. I think I had a pretty good shot but it wasn’t good enough. I have to be better.”
The thing is, Laine was better. The Finns as a whole were better—a heck of a lot better than their debut showing here, a 4-1 drubbing on Sunday at the hands of the 23-and-under stars from North America.
They skated hard. They had puck movement. They created chances on their power play. They out-shot, out-hit and out-drew the Swedes in the faceoff circle.
“I think we maybe deserved to win,” said Laine, who’s sporting a scraggly blonde moustache at this tournament. “But we didn’t.”
No, they didn’t. The result was the same as it was Sunday, though this time it wasn’t due to a lack of effort or energy. It was Lundqvist’s fault.
As Finnish coach Lauri Marjamaki put it: “Of course the goalie Lundqvist was impressive.”
Of course.
“He was playing awesome in the net, so we couldn’t score,” Laine said. “And when you don’t score any goals, it’s hard to win the game.”
Finland now finds its tournament on life support, with a must-win game against Russia on Thursday. Even that may not be enough, should North America beat Sweden on Wednesday, which would give both teams 2-1 records. It’ll all come down to goal differential if the Swedes manage to finish 3-0.
Tuesday’s game got exciting in the third. Trailing 1-0, the Suomi cheers were going full-tilt at the ACC.
Captain Mikko Koivu had two good scoring chances on passes when he was right on the doorstep — one from Mikael Granlund, who was a threat all afternoon, and another from Teuvo Teravainen. But Lundqvist shut the door.
Tuukka Rask, who sat the first game in favour of Pekka Rinne, was also solid. He stopped a Loui Eriksson breakaway late in the game, and was only beat in the second period on a perfectly-threaded pass from Henrik Sedin, who found Anton Stralman in front.
The Finns had momentum going late in the third but it was interrupted when Leo Komarov took a bad interference penalty, though the Finns picked up offensively where they left off once they were back to even-strength.
With less than 30 seconds remaining, Laine got primed for a one-timer from his favourite spot near the left circle but his stick broke on impact.
“Just frustrating,” the NHL’s second overall pick said. “We had a lot of close chances to score.”
Frustrating was the word of the day from the Finns. And disappointing.
“We played a great hockey game, and we didn’t get the result,” Granlund said. “That kind of is a little disappointing right now.”
Added Koivu: “I thought tonight especially towards the end we were getting traffic in front, and I thought we were doing the right things in order to score goals, but [Lundqvist] was the difference tonight and we just couldn’t get it past him.”
Koivu was proud of his group’s effort on Tuesday.
“I thought everyone stepped up big time,” he said. “We talked about it, how we needed to prepare for this one, how we need to play here if we wanna have success in one game or even in the tournament and I thought we realized that, we responded well.
“First game was awful from us … We’re a proud team, we’ve got a lot of pride in our country and our hockey and I thought we showed that tonight.”
Finland, the reigning world championship silver medallists and Olympic bronze medallists, may see its World Cup run come to an end Thursday at the end of round robin play.
“We’re gonna go and have fun on the ice and give it our best shot and be better than this game,” Laine said. “And hope that the other games will go just like we want, and we can have a chance to continue in this tournament.
“We just have to win. That’s our only goal for the next game.”