Rauma and Tampere move on
30 Mar 2015 | Markus Nisius
The Liiga quarterfinals won’t see any 7th game this year. Tappara and Rauma could eliminate HIFK and KalPa in the 6th game and move on to the Semifinals.
KalPa Kuopio vs Lukko Rauma 1-2, series 2-4
The first
period was quite open, but it was Lukko getting the first goal of the night through
a nice lift over goalie Andy Chiodo by Janne Lahti, who benefited from a
perfect pass through the whole KalPa defense from Olli Sipiläinen. In the
second period both defensive lines dominated and so the next goals only came in
the third when Henrik Forsberg doubled the score for Lukko with a tip in of a
puck that Ville Nieminen got in front of the goal with everything he had
fighting his way past the KalPa defenders. From here on it was a huge fight for
KalPa, but all they got on the scoresheet was a rebound of Jaakko Rissanen,
that ended up in the net.
Helsinki
IFK vs Tappara Tampere 3-4 OT, series 2-4
The game
started as many others in the series before: With a first goal by Joonas Rask
for HIFK. What followed was also known from older games of the series. HIFK
could not hold on to that lead. Olli Palola played it until the last second,
picked up a loose puck in the slot and sent the game with a 1-1 tie into the
locker rooms. In the second period the game should get wild when Antti
Erkinjuntti and Pekka Saravo found themselves in Tappara’s penalty box. HIFK
used both resulting powerplay situations to score 2 goals by Lauri Taipalus and
Juuso Puustinen within 22 seconds. Tappara came back only minutes later by
scoring twice themselves within 23 seconds. First Elmeri Kaksonen finished off
a quick combination of the Tappara offense and then Pekka Jormakka converted a
turnover in the neutral zone.
No goals
were added in the last official period and so the visitors in Helsingin Jäähalli
had to wait until 14:23 minutes had passed in overtime to see the decisive moment.
Aleksi Elorinne skated around HIFK goalie Kevin Lankinen and tried a wraparound
but his miss ended up on Erkinjuntti’s stick, who put it in the net to send
Tappara to the Semifinals.
On Friday the
Semifinals will start with these matchups:
Kärpät Oulu vs JYP Jyväskylä
Tappara Tampere vs Lukko Rauma