Liiga - Pelicans wins top duell, HIFK now Number 1 in Helsinki

The Lahti Pelicans continue to dominate the Finnish league. On Tuesday they even came out victorious of the battle with their closest rival Ilves Tampere, although it didn’t look good at the beginning. After being shut out by both goalies Ville Kolppanen (Ilves) and Jere Myllyniemi (Pelicans) for the first half of the game, Sami Sandell could finally break the spell for Ilves. Tampere’s players seemed to like the new feeling of celebrating and so they repeated the trick not even 2 minutes later by Michael Keränen and so Ilves grabbed the 2-goal-lead and was already dreaming of catching up with the leader of the pack. But in the last period Lahti came out strong and Pekka Saarenheimo and Radek Smolenak (who else, if not the league wide top-scorer) equalized the game. The shootout in the end went to Lahti, by which they secured their top spot in the league and could even pull away.

In Helsinki people right now aren’t talking about top places in the league. They have other problems. But at least for HIFK times could be brighter in the next weeks as they won their Tuesday game in Kuopio 2-1 and shut out TPS 4-0 tonight.

In Kuopio Janos Hari and Corey Elkins secured an early 2-0 lead. KalPa could get back with one goal by Janne Kolehmainen, but it wasn’t enough to crack the IFK defense twice that day. Tonight it was Juuso Puustinen with his hattrick and Brad Thiessen with his shutout, who dominated Turku. But the fact that Thiessen just had to turn aside 14 shots shows that defense seems to be IFK’s biggest plus right now.

And these two wins didn’t just make them gain ground in the standings. Something much more important happened for them in Helsinki. As Jokerit lost against Jyväskylä and also tonight in Espoo, HIFK is now 2 points ahead of Jokerit and still has two games in hand. It seems as if they have found their game and will establish themselves where you could expect them. In the middle of the play-off race.

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