Juuse Saros is among the world’s best goaltenders, so it might have seemed mildly surprising that Finland switched to Kevin Lankinen ahead of today’s game against arch-rival Sweden, even after Saros gave up six goals on 32 shots in a 6-1 loss to the United States.

But Lankinen is having a better season in Vancouver than Saros is having in Nashville — a .905 save percentage compared to Saros’ .899, and 7.32 goals saved above expected compared to Saros’ minus-3.54, per Evolving Hockey.

And perhaps just as importantly, Lankinen has quite a track record in international play.

Lankinen’s run to gold in the 2019 World Championship is the stuff of legend in Finland. The Finns were supposed to get steamrolled by far better teams with far bigger names and far deeper rosters, loaded with NHL talent. But Lankinen, who had just wrapped up his first season in North America with the AHL’s Rockford IceHogs, posted a 32-save shutout of Russia in the semifinal against a team considered by many to be the best team in World Championships history, with Alex Ovechkin, Evgeni Malkin, Nikita Kucherov, Ilya Kovalchuk, Evgeny Kuznetsov and Andrei Vasilevskiy, among others. Then in the final, Lankinen was utterly spectacular, with 43 saves on 44 shots in a 3-1 victory over Canada, whose team was all NHLers.

The celebration back home lasted days.

“In Finland, the World Championship is the biggest single sports event every year, period,” Lankinen said. “Out of 5 million people, probably 3 million people are watching. You grow up watching all these national teams and they’re the biggest heroes you have, and Finland had only won it twice before. If the team doesn’t do well, the whole nation isn’t happy. But if you do well, you have the whole country of people behind your back. That’s an unbelievable feeling. For me and a lot of the guys, it was an eye-opener after we won, when we finally got back to Helsinki and all of a sudden there are people on the streets and 50,000 people waiting for us at the square in Helsinki, and all roads are closed, and we’re driving like rock stars throughout the city while people are celebrating. That’s when it kind of hits you — it’s the best day in Finnish history.”

Follow the link below for the full oral history of that tournament.

GO FURTHER

‘The best day in Finnish history’: How Kevin Lankinen and Team Finland shocked the Worlds