Blues made SM-liiga history

03 Apr 2012 | Mikko Leino

Blues from Espoo became the first team in SM-liiga to come back from a 0-3 deficit and win a best-of-seven series on Monday evening when they defeated regular season winner KalPa in Kuopio.

KalPa-Blues 1-4 (series 3-4)

Hard fighting team Blues decided the game already in the first period when they scored three goals in less than 9 minutes. KalPa started the game very nervous, made easy mistakes and Blues took advantage of them. Blues played very aggressive and forced KalPa make mistakes. From this 3 goal deficit KalPa never recovered. KalPa's coach Tuomas Tuokkola said that in a way the fourth game was turning point in this series. There KalPa didn't work too enough and let that way Blues come into the series.

Blues will start semifinals against Pelicans on Wednesday.

Pelicans-Kärpät 3-2 (series 4-3)

Also Pelicans was able to turn the series against Kärpät although they were already 1-3 back. The whole series was very entertaining playoff hockey which more stability Pelicans managed to win.

Game seven started with Kärpät's control and they forced Pelicans to take a penalty at the beginning of the first period. However Pelicans survived from Kärpät's strong start and took control at the beginning of the second period and never let it go. Pelicans were leading 3-0 still 9 minutes before end but Kärpät gave a thrilling end to this thrilling series when they scored twice and still 2.45 remaining. They could also create a huge pressure on Pelicans goal after that but Pelicans' defense with great goalie Niko Hovinen survived.