Kodytek as a trump card? Shooters reign supreme in Finland. Like Koivu, they praise him

As if the world had turned twenty years ago, when Jan Čaloun, Jaroslav Bednář or Tomáš Kucharčík arrived at the national team meeting. Welcome the best scorer of the Finnish league, who is Petr Kodýtek! In the summer, he moved outside Pilsen for the first time, nodding at Ilves Tampere’s offer. He immediately ranked among the leaders of Liiga’s top team, with 12 goals he is the best scorer in the competition. You knew he was good. But is that so?

When you talk to him about how he managed the move to Tampere so smoothly, he just smiles. If you pull out the number of goals, the eye rolls: “That’s all nice, it sounds nice when you say something like that and add it up. But I try to keep my feet on the ground, I don’t want to make myself into something I’m not.”

Ilves fans fell in love with him quite quickly. They were ecstatic when the Czech center scored two goals for Tappara in the city derby on October 27. In the packed Nokia Arena, 12,528 people watched his show during the 4:3 win. The little devil from the Czech Republic was rampaging there.

“I think the Finnish league generally suited me. But I know very well that it wouldn’t be possible without my teammates, moreover, I scored a lot of goals from the area in front of the goal,” says Kodýtek.

His workplace will amaze you. Enough goals from the goal area with 168 cm? Yes exactly. But it’s not such a shock, for example, even on the international stage, he plays relatively close to the goal. Coach Kari Jalonen even built a power play on him when Kodýtek was supposed to hang around relatively close to the opponent’s box.

“It makes a difference if you play completely masked in front of the goal, or in the slot a meter in front of the goal area. The most important thing is that I’m fast, I try to sell it in small circles. When someone throws the puck to me, I try to be in the space where the goals are scored,” the forward explains his style.

The newspaper Ilta-Samonat wrote after the big battle with Tappara, how Kodýtek immediately reminded the fans of Dale Derkatch. The Canadian also measured 168 cm, he worked at the club from 1986-1989, scoring goals as if it were the easiest thing in the world. First 24, then 28, then he counted 36 hits. He then played in Germany for nine years.

Petr Kodýtek works on the bullpen with the new national team assistant Tomáš Plekanec

“Kodýtek has a really fast first three steps and can fire a sharper shot than Derkatch had. In addition, he is really strong in his orientation around the goal, he is a very cunning player who is very difficult to play against,” observed Jussi Heimo from Ilta-Sanomat.

Then he cut out a tribute that Kodytko will listen to very nicely: “He resembles a young Saku Koivu with his quick changes of direction. He also managed to escape from the pincers like soap.’

In the national team, no one takes the Pilsen student as an attraction anymore, because you don’t usually put such a small center in the game. He has already shown that centimeters are not decisive here at all, he managed the extra league, he also adapted to international hockey. In Finland, he is taking further steps to play at a major world event one day.

When it comes to the north of Europe, he struggled with one thing in Ilves: “The most difficult thing for me was that we have all the meetings in Finnish, that was a bit of a problem. But again, the guys who translate everything for us are great, they take care of us. If I take it as a whole, this was probably the most difficult step, switching to English, understanding what they want from me”.

He has not yet become an expert in Finnish. “Not a word,” he smiled at what he could say. “Actually two yeahs, one is rude and then I’ll say good morning.”

He first received the offer to go abroad to play three years ago, but in the end a different point of view prevailed in him: stay in Pilsen, build a position, improve. That probably worked out, huh?

At the Champions League in Pardubice, where he played his first major competitive match for Ilves, half of Pilsen came to watch him. His family gang might even beat the famous Hujers in numbers. His teacher even arrived at that time to see where Petr Kodýtek had achieved it.