Not so fast – Lahti and JYP force game 6

28 Mar 2014 | Markus Nisius

Lahti and JYP win on the road to get into a sixth game. Lukko finds its defensive play and wins its first home game.

Tappara Tampere – Lahti Pelicans 2-3 (Playoff 3-2)

Tappara had the chance to finish the series at home, but Lahti’s will to survive and bring the series back to the south was stronger. After 3 minutes it was Joel Mustonen, who brought Lahti ahead. After that Tappara took over the game, but could not get the much needed goal. Lahti used this lack of efficiency to score the second goal of the night as well through Jan Latvala on the powerplay at half time. With two minutes left in the second period Tappara could finally use their 5th power-play. In the last period it was a tight game and with only 2 minutes left it was Tyler Redenbach with his third point of the night, who scored the game-winner for the Pelicans. Kristian Kuusela could get another goal for Tampere, but this came too late. Tomorrow Lahti will try to even the series at home.

Lukko Rauma – Espoo Blues 2-1 (Playoff 3-2)

Some people in the audience might have wondered if they attended the right game in the first period. No goals in the series that featured the most goals so far. But after 27 minutes Lukko decided to fight the unwritten rule of this matchup that only guest teams win. Olli Sipilainen converted a feed from Filip Riska and 10 minutes later Toni Koivisto managed to score the second for Lukko. Normally two goals are not that much in this series, but today it was as Espoo could only come back once with a power-play marker by Tommi Huhtala.

SaiPa Lappeenranta – JYP Jyväskylä 1-2 (Playoff 3-2)

Actually most SaiPa fans thought this series is through already. But with today’s JYP win in Lapeenranta everything seems possible again. And all this despite the perfect start for SaiPa after 7 minutes when Jesse Mankinen scored and gave his team the chance to play a very controlled game. This worked out fine for 50 minutes but then Miika Lahti found the back of SaiPa’s net. Overtime? No, because now JYP was on fire and wanted the game winner. And they should get it on the power-play with 1:19 minutes left in the game through Kristian Näkyvä. A bitter loss for SaiPa that makes the situation way more complicated than it could have been.