Kärpät one step closer
28 Mar 2015 | Markus Nisius
Kärpät Oulu is one step closer to defending its championship. Since they defeated SaiPa in 5 games, they can wait for their next opponent now.
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.