Liiga - Pelicans keep fishing points

22 Sep 2013 | Markus Nisius

What is happening in Finland this year? Can Jokerit get back on track or will Lahti surprise everyone? JYP is waiting for its chance.

Five game days are over in the Finnish Liiga and one team keeps on winning. Pelicans Lahti are still unbeaten. Radek Smolenak chipped in with 5 goals already including two game-winners. Yesterday they managed to sink SaiPa 5-2 and in the early stages of the season it seems as if they can stay among the top teams for the season.

One of the teams they beat on their way was Jokerit, whose fans should be quite disappointed about their start to the season. 5 points out of 5 games is simply not enough for a team that – loking at the roster – should be able to dominate the league. They opened the season by falling to Lukko – again! One can only hope that didn’t awake bad memories for the Jokers. They could find back in the first Helsinki rivalry of the season, yesterday in Jyväskylä they fell short again. Jokerit’s main problem at this stage is consistency. But – as mentioned – the roster does just have too much quality and experience to assume they wouldn’t be able to find that consistency.

JYP themselves continued their run from the European Trophy and won four games in a row now after an opening night loss against Kärpät. Until Jokerit gets on track JYP will take the role as the main favourite for place one, especially since the scoring is spread almost even over all lines, which is a hint for a strong team effort.

The biggest disappointment so far is KalPa. Last season they were playing on top of the table for a very long time and this year they could only get 2 points out of 4 games. But there is a big “BUT”: In their two last games they came very close to getting more points. Very close! Against Ilves they blew a 3-0 lead just one second away from the final horn sound, just to lose it in the shootout. Before that they managed to hold on to an empty scoresheet in Tappara’s home arena before Kristian Kuusela scored the lone goal of the evening at the 58.55-mark.

On monday the Pelicans will try to find some more points and avoid getting the Blues in Espoo in Liiga’s only game that night.