The summer of Urama, Kallio and Suoraniemi is sweaty, even if the heatwave doesn’t hit this year, writes Anssi Karjalainen.
TPS will be included in the final series. How much easier it would be if it had firepower in the background in addition to the number one chain. Petri Saarelainen / AOP
Do you still remember Lee Sweatt, Michal Birner and Tomas Plihal? Josh Kestner and Ruslan Ishakov are probably even better remembered last spring.
Those players were the alien reinforcements of TPS in the previous two final springs.
It’s quiet now. TPS has one strong business unit, the “Persistent”. The offensive chain formed by Markus Nurmi, Juuso Pärssinen and Mikael Pyyhtiä is the finest story about the Finnish Championship League this spring. Over the weeks, the shoulders of three young attackers have grown so large that TPS wins or loses depending on their day.
Andrei Karejev is a star rating goalkeeper who has saved Teps several times. Even the final game of the last final was an indication that the edge of the Russian fighter withstands tough pressure.
Who, then, are the other alien reinforcements? In the attack, Tyler Steenbergen and Jack Rodewald are versatile two-sunner strikers who, however, fail to excel at the head of attack against a top-collective top five like Tapparan. Mitch Hults has slipped down the middle in less than 14 minutes.
Promising Juraj Slafkovsky has responded to the call over the course of the season, but it would be wrong to relieve pressure on earnings until a Slovak approaching an NHL reservation.
In defense, Johan Ivarsson and Niklas Arell are at the top of the league with their own strengths. Both Swedes are reliable basic packages on which to build a championship team.
Among Finnish acquisitions, mention should be made of the debt Elmeri Eronen. The second-generation TPS disc player returned to Turku with high expectations, but did not make the same result as a year earlier at HPK.
Now that the finals have been reached, TPS and Jussi Ahokas deserve their praise, but after the season, it’s worth asking the club’s sports management if this plan was really being sought.
HPK won the Finnish championship without foreign cannons in the spring of 2018-2019. The sensation bundle piloted by Antti Pennanen had all the pieces in place since the way they were played. It pressed hard when needed and went straight to attack, but sometimes it also slowed down and came up in a tight front with the puck.
The cornerstone of the agile style of play has been hacked to protect your own head. TPS is malicious and hard on his defensive range, and it is not easy to score goals against it. Offensive play in the offensive area, on the other hand, is nowhere near as diverse and productive – and that’s been the picture all season.
Tomi Kallio’s task is to find confirmations for TPS. Jaakko Stenroos / AOP
In the main games of the spring, the superiority has been catastrophically weak: not a goal with five to four in the last 10 matches. It, as a single factor, may be solving even a championship.
It reminds me of how significant a player Lauri Korpikoski would have been when he was almost at a point-per-match pace last season.
The management of the sports side includes Rauli Urama, Mika Suoraniemi and Tomi Kallio, the most recent of whom play a significant role in player monitoring. Hardly in the office was it thought that Rodewald, Steenbergen and Hults would try to keep only their opponents at zero in the spring solving games.
Were you asleep in the office when the KHL emptying sales started?
According to IL, Arttu Ilomäki is already a confident in Tepsi next season. Evening News said that greedy striker Pavol Skalicky is arriving in Turku. There are pieces, but there is enough work to do.
Pärssinen is fleeing behind the rapids, Eros has been rumored to be in Sweden, and surely the gold helmet Nurmea and the paint sprayer Pyyhtiää are courting outside Turku.
Ruisrock is known for its excellent weather – The summer of Urama, Kallio and Suoraniemi is sweaty, even if the heatwave doesn’t hit this year.