JYP and Jokerit ready for SM-liiga semifinals

29 Mar 2012 | Mika Leino

KalPa and Kärpät need another win.

Blues-KalPa 3-1 (series 1-3)

Blues and KalPa continued their hard hitting series. Blues wasn't yet ready for summer holliday and their fought for their season. KalPa wasn't prepared as good to the game as usual and Blues used their chance. Blues' hero was two goal defender Ari Vallin. KalPa's top goalie Mikko Koskinen was suspended because of fighting in last game with Tommi Huhtala. Juha Toivonen didn't have his best day and first goal for Blues went in too easily.

There was another major penalty when KalPa's Jukka Hentunen's blind side hit sent Blues' Camilo Miettinen to the hospital. According first reports Miettinen's collarbone was fractured. During 5 min powerplay Blues scored their third goal and game was over.

Kärpät-Pelicans 4-1 (series 3-1)

Wild card qualifier Kärpät has put regular season runner up Pelicans against the wall. Kärpät leads series with three wins to one and their game looks very solid at the moment. Kärpät defense is like a rock and their offense scores much more efficient than Pelicans'. Also Pelican's makes pretty easy mistakes which Kärpät has used very efficient. Furthermore former Finnish national team coach Hannu Aravirta has found perfect game system against Pelicans. Kärpät's Juha-Pekka Haataja scored a hat trick.

Jokerit-HIFK 2-0 (series 4-0)

Playoffs' biggest surprise so far was this series. Jokerit's win wasn't that big of a surprise but the way they did it and how poor HIFK, reigning Finnish champion, looked in this series was a huge surprise and disappointment for HIFK and their fans. HIFK played very good icehockey at the end of regular season and they started playoffs as a biggest favourite for championship. However they never found a solution to Jokerit's defensive trap and also couldn't score when they had a chance. Also Jokerit's goalie Eero Kilpeläinen is playing very good springtime hockey. Futhermore HIFK's top players, Ville Peltonen, Mikael Granlund among others, never found their best form.

This decisive game was just like previous three games. HIFK tried and tried but Jokerit scored. Jokerit's first goal was pretty much the picture af the whole series: two HIFK's defenders collided on their own blueline and Nichlas Hardt could skate freely to the goal and score the winning goal. With this outstanding series Jokerit played themselves as a biggest favourite for the championship.

Ässät-JYP 1-4 (series 0-4)

Another series which was decided straight 4-0. Allthough all games in the series were pretty tight Ässät actually never really could challenge JYP. Also in this last game things went like in previous games: JYP used their momentum but Ässät didn't. Year 2009 champion JYP used those few mistakes that Ässät defense made, their powerplay was better and they used also scoring chances with better efficiency. And on top of that JYP has Sami Vatanen. This skilfull little guy, who most likely joins Anaheim's NHL organization next season, did almost what he wanted. Bad news allhough game in the third period when Vatanen hurt his ankle and was helped out of the rink. After the game there wasn't still info how badly he hurt.