Liiga - Last minute victories for Lukko

It was a spectacular weekend for Lukko Rauma, which they finished with a 3-1 win over the reigning European Trophy winner JYP Jyväskylä. But it took them quite a while to get there. The first goal for Lukko from Teemu Nurmi early in the second period got equalized soon by JYP’s Petr Hubacek on the first powerplay the guys from middle Finland got served when Teemu Nurmi himself got benched. So the game was still dominated by the goalies until Jesse Virtanen finally found the back of the net with only 1:25 minutes to go in the game. With 2 seconds left Harri Tikkanen could add an empty netter.

But Rauma was familiar with being patient for the game-winner as they just experienced the same the night before in their derby against their western Finnish neighbours from Pori. With one difference: On Friday Pori already looked like the winners of the game. Ässät had a splendid start when Aleksi Saarela and Henri Heino established a 2-0 lead after only 3 minutes. At the 14:06 mark Antti Kerälä even raised the score to 3-0 for Pori. Even Aaron Gagnon’s first goal for Lukko towards the end of the second period did not change much. But Rauma hang on and wanted to win this derby. When the scoreboard’s game time ticked down into single digits the patience finally started to pay off. Janne Lahti and Olavi Vauhtonen shocked Pori with 2 goals in 2 minutes to even the score and goalie Rasmus Rinne did not look good on both of these goals. The volume in Pori’s icehall ultimately shifted completely to the guest side when Aaron Gagnon added his second goal of the night with 59 seconds left in the game to win 3 points for Lukko.

For Ässät it was aready the second defeat after falling victim to Tappara’s new approach to win games on Thursday. Tampere managed to get 2 shutout wins on the weekend with Juha Metsola stopping 28 shots against Pori and 34 today against Lahti. On Thursday Antti Erkinjuntti opened the scoring for Tappara, followed by two markers from Kristian Kuusela and Atte Mäkinen in the second period. Today in Lahti they also scored three times. This time Olli Palola got the first after 27 seconds in the second period, while Jere Karjalainen and Kristian Kuusela secured the win with late goals.

Another big shutout could be celebrated by Eero Kilpelainen for KalPa today. After giving up four goals yesterday in Oulu against Julius Junttila (2), Joonas Donskoi and Ivan Huml, in what turned out to be a 4-1 defeat, Kilpelainen did not let a single puck get past him today on 17 shots. The first goal up front was provided by Jukka Voutilainen on the powerplay after only 6 minutes, assisted by Mikael Ruohomaa and Kasperi Kapanen, who came back from the Pittsburgh Penguins’ training camp earlier this week where he did not yet make the cut, which could turn out as a fortunate situation for KalPa this season. Midway through the third period Jaako Rissanen doubled the score and secured the win for Kuopio to even the back to back series with Kärpät this weekend.

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