Tappara claim crown of Tampere in back to back week

In the NHL it happens a lot. Back to back games where two teams face each other twice in two consecutive nights with the home advantage switching in between. In Europe’s leagues that’s rather a rarity. However, Finnish schedule makers wanted it to happen twice this week for each team.

Tappara used the schedule to prove which team is ruling Tampere at the moment. On Friday goalie Tomi Karhunen made 33 saves to lift his team to a 5-0 shutout over city rivals Ilves. After just 22 minutes, the game had already been decided by Kuusela, Honkanen, Järvinen and Karjalainen. Each player had scored a goal, forcing Ilves goalie Hannu Toivonen to an early end of his working day after facing only 6 shots. Late in the last period Jukka Peltola added one more goal for Tappara to make it 5-0.

The next day both teams met in Hakametsä again and this time Ilves kept the game closer, but Patrick Laine, one of the heroes from the WJC championship team of the Finnish lions, had a great night. His first strike came on a powerplay after 16 minutes. Alexander Bonsaksen set the score to 2-0 for Tappara just 35 seconds into the second period, giving Ilves fans a bad impression of déjà-vu. But their team fought back strongly and by the end of the period the game was turned around. Matias Sointu, Eero Savilahti and Tommi Välimaa scored three goals in the last 7 minutes to give Ilves a 3-2 lead in the second intermission.

And then came Laine. With 4:22 to go in the game he put the puck in from a sharp angle off a rebound from the end boards. Hanu Toivonen did not look good on that goal either. Having already sent the game to overtime, Laine then scored the game-winning goal. He  finished a beautiful play set-up by Kristian Kuusela and Jukka Peltola. Tappara takes 5 points away from the two games and remains a hot contender for leader Kärpät Oulu.

Oulu with perfect weekend

Kärpät had a perfect weekend themselves collecting 6 points out of two games against KalPa Kuopio. On friday Miro Aaltonen, Mika Pyörälä, Adam Masuhr and Esa Pirnes secured the win in the first 22 minutes, while Santeri Lukka could only come back on Oulu with one goal. In the last period Saku Mäenalanen added one more for Kärpät to give them a 5-1 win.

One day later at home they needed one goal less to beat KalPa again, this time by 4-1. Pyörälä and Aaltonen were among the goal scorers again and received support from Julius Junttila and young talent Jesse Puljujärvi, who opened the scoring on a powerplay after 8 minutes.

Helsinki vs Espoo

Another team with 6 points was HIFK. In their battle against the Espoo Blues for the reign of Helsinki's metropolitan area. They won twice by the same score of 3-2. On friday almost 7000 fans in Helsingin Jäähalli (Helsinki Ice Hall) saw Robert Leino bring HIFK ahead. Espoo’s Peter Tiivola and Jere Seppälä evened the score after HIFK’s next go ahead goal by Johann Auvitu early in the last period. So  the game winner came from Jasse Ikonen with just 29 seconds left on the game clock.

The next day the travel across the bay brought the same result. Although Espoo establised a lead midway through the second period with two power-play markers, Henri Tamminen and Arttu Luttinen turned the game in Helsinki’s favour for a 3-2 victory.

JYP was the third team that secured all 6 points of the weekend with a 4-2 and a 3-1 victory over Vaasa.

The next round of back to back games starts tonight. The most interesting ones will probably be the top two matchups between JYP and Kärpät as well as the games of Tappara and Lukko Rauma.

Tweets by @eurohockey