Defenseman Olli Määttä from Detroit and forward Mikael Granlund from San Jose are the first significant signings from the NHL for the Finnish hockey players at the World Championships in Prague and Ostrava.
Granlund will not join the team until the last week before the championship. Määttä will present himself next week at the Czech Games in Brno, where coach Jukka Jalonen will also have striker Jesse Puljujärvi from Pittsburgh at his disposal. The website of the Finnish Ice Hockey Federation informed about it.
The 29-year-old Määttä is a two-time Stanley Cup winner with Pittsburgh in 2016 and 2017. He will be making his second consecutive appearance at the World Cup and third overall. He won silver in 2021 in Riga.
He competed at the Sochi Olympics in 2014, where he achieved bronze, and at the World Cup in Toronto two years later. In the NHL, the former Chicago and Los Angeles player played 684 games in the regular season and collected 177 points for 40 goals and 137 assists. In 85 playoff games, he scored 27 points for five goals and 22 assists.
Granlund, who is three years older, is the world champion from 2011 and 2022. His seventh world championship awaits him. He also started at the Olympics in Sochi and at the last World Cup.
In the NHL, he played for Minnesota, Pittsburgh and San Jose in 819 games with a balance of 544 points for 157 goals and 387 assists. In 59 games fighting for the Stanley Cup, he added 32 points (11+21).
After the first triumph at the World Cup, he got on postage stamps in Finland, which depicted his “floorball” goal from the semi-final against Russia. In the match, he picked up the puck behind the goal on the blade of the stick and threw it behind Konstatin Barulin
Twenty-five-year-old Puljujärvi only got the chance to play in 22 games this NHL season and had a 3+1 record. He also worked on the farm in Wilkes-Barre/Scranton in the AHL.
The former player of Edmonton and Carolina in the best league in the world collected a total of 118 points for 54 hits and 64 assists from 356 duels. In 27 playoff games, he scored three times and assisted on three goals. So far, he has only competed at the World Cup in 2017.
The Finns will be the first opponent of the Czech hockey players in the basic group of the WC on Friday, May 10 from 8:20 p.m. in Prague’s O2 arena.
Tags: Finns significant reinforcements NHL world championship
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