Liiga – Lahti scores important win in Play-Off race

12 Jan 2014 | Markus Nisius

Pelicans beat their biggest rival for the last play-off berth 4-1 and catch some air to breath now. Meanwhile KalPa upsets Kärpät in the shootout.

Over the last weeks the fans of the Pelicans only had rare occasions for joy in between all the losses their team had to suffer from. After a magnificent start to the season, in which the Southern Finnish team sometimes seemed invincible, they dropped to the 11^th place. The breaking point was more or less the departure of top scorer Radek Smolenak to the KHL, although the streak had already been broken with him still on board.

As we look at the standings today, Lahti is one of the teams that has to be concerned about making the Play-Offs at all. And so the match-up against Hämeenlinna yesterday in their home Isku Areena was a crucial one as HPK could pull even with Lahti currently in the last pre-play-off spot in 10^th place.

After a rather unspectacular first period with only 9 shots combined by both teams that just showed how important that game was, it was Lahti that could light the lamp first. Janne Ritamäki opened the scoring after 30 minutes of play. But it was not yet the time for Lahti to pull away. Not even 2 minutes later HPK found the back of the net themselves when Joonas Viihko put one in.

So once more the fans had to spend some time chewing finger nails instead of raising their arms in celebration mode. Defense first kept on being the main point of the game for both as the last period saw only 11 shots, too. But then after almost 50 minutes Timo Pärssinen finally changed the tune of the game, at least for the Pelicans’ fanatics. And when Tomi Pekkala managed to get the insurance goal 4 minutes later, the relief for everybody was intense. Pavel Rosa could add an empty netter to make it a 4-1 win for Lahti, who are now 6 points ahead of HPK in the standings instead of being equal with them, an option that was still in reach until 10 minutes left in the game.

However, HPK remains as the only left contender for this play-off-berth despite the unexpected 3-2 shootout win of KalPa against the top team Kärpät. KalPa and Ässät are both 12 points behind Lahti already.