The 4 Nations Face-Off came to a close Thursday night as Team Canada took home gold thanks to a 3-2 overtime win over Team USA.
The tournament featured four teams (Team Sweden and Team Finland were also represented) who all played in a round robin to determine the final.
Sebastian Aho, who was an alternate captain for the Finns, spoke to the media Friday about his experience at the tournament. Here's what he had to say:
On if the tournament was more intense than he expected: No, I expected the high-intensity, high-level of hockey and that's definitely what it was. Obviously, you wish you did a little better as a team and go to the final and win the whole thing, but the games were awesome. It's so much fun playing for your own country and obviously best-on-best, doesn't get much better than that.
On what it means to him to represent Finland: It's a huge honor and it was a lot of fun. Grew up with most of those guys and played on the same teams in juniors and stuff like that, so it was really great to see all the guys and play for your own country. It was a lot of fun.
On the fan reception: It is best-on-best and it hasn't been that for what? Nine, ten years? So I knew the players were excited. Obviously I didn't expect too much on how much people were watching those games, but I knew the atmosphere at the rink was going to be good and obviously those two cities have great crowds already and then you add your own country fans there. It was awesome.
On facing someone he's normally teammates with in Jaccob Slavin: I think it was like the first or second shift, he stood me up at the blueline and then we went offsides and our eyes locked and it was kind of a weird moment. But after that, it's all business. You play hockey and you don't really think about that stuff. It's so fast that you don't really... unless there's a scrum and you start doing stuff like that, you might say a few words, but it's too fast. After that first shift, it wasn't weird anymore.
On Jaccob Slavin's performance at the tournament: Everyone here knows how good he is. Obviously now with probably a little bit of a bigger platform, everyone sees him. Best-on-best and he did a pretty damn good job shutting those guys down. He's an unbelievable d-man and we're so lucky to have him.
On getting the win over rival Sweden: That win kept us alive in the tournament. Obviously it's also a big rivalry against Sweden so it made it that much more special to win against that team, but it kept our hopes alive. We couldn't pull it against Canada, but it was a big win.
On Mikael Granlund: Great player. Obviously has had some success on the national team. That was definitely a big goal in OT and then scoring two against Canada too.
On the championship game: I didn't expect to see anything like [the first game between USA and Canada]. It's the final. If you take a penalty or something, it's too big of a risk. So I expected it to be more like that. It was still high-paced and there were hits, but not at the same level as the first game. Two really good teams going at it. It was kind of a coin flip. People asked me who was going to win and I didn't know. They were both such good teams and I guess the best team won.
On how he felt he played in the tournament: Definitely could have been better. I feel like our line didn't necessarily get going too well. That's also a learning process. We're probably pretty much going to have the same team in the Olympics so hopefully we learn from this and kind of get our best foot forward there. You always try to improve your game and you always try to be your best, but it's not always that easy. You come midseason and you have one or two practices and then you have to go out there and play. And then maybe some of the stuff is different that we do here or some players do with their own team and stuff like that. I mean, those are excuses. You'd like to play your best game, but obviously there was room to improve there.
On Seth Jarvis winning gold: He definitely earned that medal. That's awesome for him and I'm actually really happy for him. First making the team, then getting to play in the final game. It's great. If you watched the game, you saw how much emotion guys showed after the win, so it's probably a huge thing for him.
On preparing for a playoff push: Definitely want to start good tomorrow night right off the bat. We don't tip-toe back into the regular season. We want to have a good start again and then go from there. You don't want to think too much ahead, but just have to start on time.
On if he got any rest following the tournament: We got a couple of days. Me and Mikko [Rantanen] came back here Tuesday morning. Got a couple of days off the ice. Did a couple of workouts and stuff like that, but it was nice to spend a couple of days at home, for sure.
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