Kärpät one step closer

Kärpät Oulu vs SaiPa Lappeenranta 5-1, series 4-1

Simon Suoranta was the man of the day. With his two goals late in the first and second period he got Kärpät on the winning street. The scoring was opened after 87 seconds by Ben Maxwell and with 42 minutes played, Adam Masuhr had already decided the game with his 4-0. Two minutes later Ville Koho could get SaiPa on the scorecard too, what led to SaiPa pulling the goalie with 6 minutes left in the game. But it was Patrick Davis, who scored the last goal of the day into an empty net for Oulu's final win in this series.

Lukko Rauma vs KalPa Kuopio 3-2, series 3-2

Quick answers were the key to Lukko’s third win in the quarterfinals. The game only picked up fire in the last period, which Lukko entered with a 1-0 lead due to Toni Koivisto’s second period marker, that he scored just a few seconds after coming off the penalty box. In the last period KalPa equalized the game twice through Michal Birner and Sami Mutanen, but both times Lukko didn’t let them dream too long about a 3-2 series lead. First it took Janne Niskala two and a half minutes to regain the lead and then Janne Lahti even shortened that time span to 23 seconds. Lukko can now secure a semifinal spot on Monday in Kuopio.

Tappara Tampere vs Helsinki IFK 2-1, series 3-2

Tappara was meant to come out strong in order to come back with something at HIFK, after the capital team had won two straight games and took the momentum. After 4:32 minutes Markus Kankaanperä got them ahead and even Yohann Auvitu’s eqalizer could not get them off track in the first period. Jan-Mikael Järvinen could re-establish the lead late in the first. What followed was quite unusal for this high scoring series. Both teams could not add any more goals to Hakametsä's video screen over two periods thanks to two great goalies Ville Husso and Juha Metsola. So in the end Tappara could take over the lead in the series again and has now 2 chances to close the series, the next one coming on Monday in Helsinki.

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