[lieht]

Karjala Cup begins tomorrow, Finland will face Russia, while Czech Republic takes on Sweden.

The Olympic Gold medalists are without their big star Jaromir Jagr, as he leaves space for the younger players to step it up after the Olympics success. As most teams, Czech Republic have alot of KHL players in their squad, thirteen to be exact. Their goaltender, Stepanek will be a big part of Czech's defense, and I have high hopes for him, now that hes the 2nd goalie since Nabokov signed with SKA Petersburg who really havent impressed, he probably will make a great effort in these games. Stepanek will get support from a number of good names such as Rachunek, Kraijcek, Skoula, and Mojzis.

Their Offense is looking great and has to be their strongest part in their team. The coach Alois Hadamczik has decided to call in big names, Vasicek, Kaspar, Cervenka and Klepis are all supposed to lead Czech Republic to victory. These players are big stars in their clubs in the KHL. Both Kaspar and Cervenka are top placed in the players points league, 2nd and 3rd. Kaspar has scored the most goals in the KHL (16) and is a huge part of Astana's offense, Cervenka has managed score 14 goals, and he has 3 games less played than Kaspar. It is no secret that Czech's offense will be one of the best in this small tournament and it will be intresting to see well these players will cope with eachother.

Sweden's team, has to be the weakest of them four. Pär Mårt's will be the new coach of the swedish team, and this will definantly be a tough assignment for him. Sweden usually do very poorly in these tournaments as they have only won once, in 1997, and this has to be one of the weakest/untested rosters Sweden has ever had. In the team they have 6 KHL players and in the defense we find players such as, Petrasek, Junland, Rundblad. No huge names and it does look abit poor as Mårt's have called in 3 debutants in the defense, two of them are youngsters and its an intresting move indeed. They will try to protect their goaltender, Stefan Liv, Sibir Novosibirsk, KHL.

Stefan, who has had a good season so far, he is placed 7th in goaltender save perecentage. The numbers do lie abit, as Sibir's defense has been quite good this season, and Stefan has had to fight for his first goaltender spot. He is indeed used to blocking shots from KHL stars, and it will be intresting to see how well it will go with the "new" defense. In Sweden's offense we find such names as Nilsson, Melin and Persson from the KHL. Both Melin and Persson has had very poor results in the KHL, and very little playtime overall, but they are Veterans and are needed.

Robert Nilsson on the other hand plays in the first lineup in Salavat, together with Thoresen and KHL's biggest star Radulov. Many people, including myself, think that Nilsson is not good enough to play with Thoresen & Radulov. He has his moments, but overall a player that still has to improve to be considered a top player, it is known that he has troubles focusing some games. In Sweden's offense we find 3 other debutants, and thats Sweden in a nutshell. A team with many new players.

Overall, Sweden's team is pretty poor, SKA Petersburg's stars Mårtensson and Weinhandl are both missing, and I have a hard time picking out who Sweden's goalscorer will be. Nilsson, Melin and Persson, who comes from the KHL, are not known to be goalscorers in their clubs, and I see a team that will have troubles against Czech Republic in all 3 zones. The game will be played in Czech Republic, and Czech's offensive power is something that will cause definantly cause problems for Sweden's young defense.

This is definantly a mismatch as Czech has a strong team with many big names, while Sweden comes to this tournament with many players from the Swedish Elitserien. It is to much of a difference between the KHL and the Swedish league. Both Finland and Russia have stronger teams than Sweden, and its very likely that Sweden will find themself on the last spot this year.

PICK

Spoiler:

Czech Republic @ 1.95 BWIN, 5u