Finland has been put in a tough spot entering the 2026 Winter Olympics in Italy. They’re already the forgotten middle child amongst the top international teams, but after losing Aleksander Barkov to ACL and MCL injuries in September, Finland became an afterthought in the gold medal race.
But Finland shouldn’t be counted out so easily. Pete Blackburn and Uffe Bodin talk about how the Finns are a sleeper pick for gold during the Milan Games Men’s Hockey Roundtable.
Pete Blackburn: My eyes always go to Finland. It’s always Finland. I know that they’ve got concerns on the blue line, but they’ve got a lot of good players and it seems like Finland constantly commits to the international game and seems to do pretty well there.
Maybe what they lack on the blue line is mitigated by what they have in net. Maybe it’s mitigated by what they’re able to find up front and make a commitment to team defense. But for me, when I’m always looking for a sleeper, I feel like Finland often gets overlooked or underestimated and constantly proves us wrong.
Uffe Bodin: It hurts me as a Swede to mention Finland again, but I think Pete is bang on there. I’ve been to so many World Championships where they have basically had teams that had no NHL players at all, and they come out on top. They have beat teams like Canada, USA, Russia with really good players on their teams. They seem to be able to just closeout games where they’re not supposed to have a chance to win.
So I think I think they’re scary to me… Missing Barkov is huge, but they always seem to find some kind of team chemistry that no one else can find and manage to shut down teams. They’re just plain scary.”
You can watch the full episode here…
