Metsola, Juha

He began his professional career in SM-League at the age of 16 as part of his native club. He regularly played for the junior and youth national teams of Suomi - and although he did not win any medals, he became the best goalkeeper of the tournament in terms of reliability coefficient at two world championships.

At the age of 17 he went to conquer North America, where he joined the WHL club "Lethbridge Hurricanes". This club Juha was drafted at number 25 in the first round. Largely thanks to the Finnish goalkeeper, Lethbridge will soon achieve an unusually high level for himself and reach the final of WHL, where he will lose only to the best junior team of Canada in the 2007/08 season - Spokane Chefs. However, the following year was less successful for Lethbridge, and after it Metsola, who wanted to raise the level of the game, returned to his homeland.

Before the 2009/10 season, he becomes the second goalkeeper of the Finnish COD, where, although not receiving much playing time, Juha becomes the silver medalist of the Finnish SM-League. The following season, despite the high level of the game, Metsola remains the reserve goalkeeper of the COD and gets less playing time than he would like. Before the 2011/12 season, he moves to Tappara, where he will have to share the place of the main goalkeeper with Jani Nieminen.

In the debut season, Juha shows the level of the game higher than that of his partner, but he becomes a full-fledged “number one” only after Nieminen leaves. Season 2012/13 becomes the first for Metsola as the main goalkeeper of the adult team. And it turns out he is very good - with "Tappara" he comes to the final of the SM-League.

The following year, the situation repeated itself: Metsola again brought “Tapparu” to the finals of the Finnish championship, where in seven meetings his team still lost. He again satisfied with only silver. The 2014/15 season was the best in his career: Juha unconditionally the main goalkeeper of “Tappara”, with her he becomes the best goalkeeper in the percentage of reflected throws, wins the prestigious prize - “Urpo Ilonen Evard”, gets into the symbolic team of the SM-League. For complete happiness, the victory in the final was not enough - his “Tappara” again lost the final in seven meetings.

In July 2015, it became known that Metsola will continue his career in Khabarovsk “Amur” , acting in the KHL. On August 27, 2015, he held the first official game for the Khabarovsk club, in which his team won Medveschak (3: 2) shootouts, and in the next game with Slovan he defended “0”, thereby helping his team to win (1 : 0).

In March 2016, he signed a new contract with Amur for a period of 1 year, and then extended it for another year. Thanks to his great game, Cupid got into the playoffs after 6 seasons. All three seasons of appearances for “Amur” was the main goalkeeper of the team.

In February 2018, he was included in the Finnish national team at the Olympic Games in Pyeongchan . He did not go on the ice, the main goalkeeper of the Finns, who lost in the quarter finals of Canada (0: 1), was Mikko Koskinen .

On May 1, 2018, he signed a contract with Salavat Yulaev .

As of 05/01/2018

• Winner of the second youth division of the SM-League: 2005/06.
• Finalist WHL : 2007/08.
• The four-time silver medalist SM-League: 2009/10, 2012/13, 2013/14, 2014/15.
• The best goalkeeper of the SM-League: 2014/15.
• KHL's best goalkeeper: 2018/2019

Juha is married and has 2 children. https://www.championat.com/hockey/news-2859628-golkiper-amura-metsola-vo-vtoroj-raz-stal-otcom.html

• Juha Metsola - statistics on Eliteprospects.com (English)
• Juha Metsola - statistics on The Internet Hockey Database (eng.)