My comments on Ortio and Erixon.
First thing about Ortio is to compare his performance to last year's WJC and a year has clearly made a big difference. Last year he had troubles adjusting to higher tempo and more straight forward game and he didn't get used to those things through whole tournament looking shaky and not maintaining his good technique. Coming into this year's WJC Ortio has secured a spot with Sm-Liiga team and having lot of succesful starts at pro level has done wonders to his confidence.
With goalies everything depends on confidence-level. I don't think there has been much improvement on Ortio's technique from last year because it was already a strength but with better self-confidence he was able to play up to his potential. He had good movement around crease, not only lateral but forward-backward movement too which allowed him to challenge shooters better than maybe any goalie in the tournament. Nice to see this because he has had issues staying too deep in net/going down too early which left room to shoot over his shoulders. Unlike last year now he maintained technique while moving and was rarely off balance which is important because in AHL/NHL puck movement is quicker and goalie's moves have to be smooth. He also had good composure and rebound control.
A key to Ortio's good tournament was Finland's defence who forced opponent's to shoot from outside best scoring areas and they cleared high percentage of loose pucks in front of the net. Playing behind good defence is important for Ortio. First, Ortio loses sight to puck quite easily. He doesn't have Kipper-like ability to keep eye-contact on puck but rather Ortio might get down to butterfly and freeze still which happened several times. I'd say that's combination of lack of instincts and being too "kind" (not willing to fight for room in front of net). Other relates to previous vision-issue: he has troubles finding loose pucks around net and fight for them. He relies too much on defence to win those battles. When he comes across the pond these kind of battles increase exponentially and Ortio needs to learn how track and catch loose pucks. Third issue is he might not read the play correctly and overplay a little bit. That's okey but sometimes it looks like he doesn't want to recover and rather gives up on play.
Another issue is mental side of game. It includes confidence and character(=willingness and ability to WIN). I already mentioned that Ortio's confidence has got better, lot better but I think he is too dependent on it. The best goalie's are best goalie's because they have strongest mental strength, they aren't dependent on confidence-level which could differ daily. They have strong characters which appears on ability to not only handle pressure but also raise their performances on another level when the stakes are high; playoffs, medal rounds. It can also be seen on things I mentioned to be Ortio's weaknesses: they don't want to lose sight to puck, they want to catch every loose puck around net and especially they never give up on play.
Unfortenately I don't see those things in Ortio... at least not yet. His development this season has been very encouraging and he could learn these things some day but I personally like to look at natural ability especially with these character things (of which I think are good ways to judge talent) and at this moment Ortio does not have those as strengths. For example the only weak goal he let in this tournament was in situation when he needed to handle big pressure and step up, a goal by Bjugstad in overtime in decisive game to get free pass to semifinals.
Previous three paragraphs might be too harsh and make too early judgements. I don't think weak mental side will prevent him to make NHL but it certainly reduces his potential if he doesn't improve mental strentgh (by mental coaching or simply maturing). But again, what the hell I know, I consider Luongo mentally not as strong as most goaltenders in the big league but still he is known to be one of the best goaltenders in the game and is a proven Olympic champion. We'll see what happens first in summer if Ortio get's entry-level deal or not and where the Flames want him to play next season. I hope in Finland because he is under quality coaching which has provably took him forward every year and he has chance to be starter in Elite league level.
Oops, I didn't expect to write a novel so I'll comment on Erixon when I have time.
__________________
|