Joni Pitkanen Suspended One Game, Will Miss Olympic Quarterfinals

you said it all and correctly LTD…we, thank you !!

Did you stay up for the whole game, LTD? I headed out at 3-0, right before the Joni hit.

Then Ruutut got all the attention as the only Finn star of the game. The camera couldn’t stay away from him.

I still keep thinking: WTF were they thinking in Helsinki in December to not have Jussi there? Finland looked old last night. They coulda used a 26-yr old pair of legs instead of all those in the over-35 bracket.

Pits and Jussi are magic, and with Ruutu leading their team now in his familiar Ruu-awesomeness, someone in the upper ranks of Finland hockey has got to asking how Jussi was overlooked for frickin’ “politics”. And I’m not even Finnish and I’m really pissed off about it.

Have you given any thought to the potential Friday match-up? One game at a time, I guess.

they probably wish they didn’t get the bye, that way Joni would be out vs. a lesser opponent

Yeah but how about Jehre Lehtinen, for that matter Jussi is producing better, and is less of a locker room poison than Olli.

I guess I’m thinking the Finns might have benefitted having Jussi’s 26 yr old legs with world-class and very-clutch talent plus chemistry with 2 of their biggest stars. If the score hadn’t been 3-0, and Joni wasn’t so frustrated, perhaps that hit wouldn’t have happened that way. He wouldn’t have been looking to leave an impression with his elbow, instead looking with confidence for a great feed to Jussi like he has done so often the last year. (and for a decade previously).

A lot of what-if’s but a lot more like the Joni we know than that dirty hit he put on Hornqvist.

Clearly Joni didn’t get the memo that a) he’s not Chris Pronger and b) for his “sneaky nasty” to be effective, it has to be sneaky.

wow. intentional or unintentional, that’s a nasty shot.

He looks right at him before the elbow goes up. Unfortunately IMHO its absolute intent on Joni’s part

I call it sneaky nasty. Most of the time he gets away with it in terms of punishment.

   It’s pretty hard to find a term that carries the right connotation for a player who has something of a mean streak for contact sports. It is not really mean-spirited; but it is more than merely intense. Gleason has that side that can be mean. Ruutu as well hits will conviction that goes beyond merely doing it because it is his job. I think Pitkanen is developing that part of his game where he brings an edge of quiet rage to the hit. It does seem that Pitkanen was sending a message and that the hit was not a legal hit. I wonder what was happening on the ice prior to that hit.

   I know Pitkanen needs to be able to control his temper, but as he develops the hitting portion of his game, he is going to be an amazing player for the Hurricanes. If the Hurricanes have an area that needs attention, it is the ability to lay trainwreck hits at appropriate times and in appropriate ways. Ruutu, of course, is a freight train. Gleason comes bearing a desire to knock his opponent into the 300 rows of the RBC. Alberts too can lay a ton of pain on a forward who loses concentration around him. Still, at least one hitting forward and one more hitting defenseman would make a huge difference to the Hurricanes (in conjunction with having those new hitting players also have world class hockey skills — i.e. Pitkanen and Gleason and now, Staal.