because Finland had more NHL-level talent available to play in the game than the United States did? Most high-level American players are in the NHL or AHL, so USA hockey had to pick from either prospects that teams felt fine giving Olympic time to like Knies or Drew Helleson, or they picked AHL lifers like Aaron Ness and Pat Nagle. High-level Finnish players don't exclusively play in the NHL - Team Finland picked a bunch of guys with past NHL experience who are playing in Liiga or the KHL now and didn't bring -any- prospects to Beijing. The youngest player on Finland was 27.

Finland also had the best team, so saying that getting picked for the 4th place finisher makes a prospect better than the one that wasn't picked for the gold medal winner is kind of a weird stance to take.

@saskleaf

Thanks for telling me about this. I had no idea such a thing existed.