Well rested home teams dominate first Semi Final games

Tappara Tampere – Lukko Rauma 5-2

Lukko might have been still a bit tired from the tough series against Espoo that only ended on Monday. And so they were not concentrated enough to avoid mistakes and found themselves in the penalty box too often for a play-off game. 5 penalties in the first period alone and Tappara took advantage of three of them. Olli Palola, Nick Bailen and Kristian Kuusela managed to bring Tappara 3-0 ahead and almost decided the game with that. Early in the third period Aaron Gagnon lit up the hopes again for Lukko, but 45 seconds later Jan-Mikael Järvinen set the score back to the old 3 goal margin. Toni Koivisto tried it once more after 53 minutes for Lukko, but the only goal that followed was the empty netter by Josh Green. Lukko will have two more nights to get ready for this series before they host Tappara in Rauma on friday.

Kärpät Oulu – SaiPa Lappeenranta 6-2

Unlike Lukko SaiPa knew how to get ready in time for the next game. 49 seconds into the contest Sami Venänäläinen scored for SaiPa. After 8 minutes it was Ville Pokka, who let the audience know that Oulu is also taking part in this game and tied the game. But only two minutes later Per Savilahti-Nagander regained the lead for SaiPa. That was the wake up call for Oulu. Lasse Kukkonen and Juhamatti Aaltonen turned the game around still in the first period and from now on Kärpät controlled Game 1. In the second period Ben Maxwell established a 4-2 lead and in the last period two power play goals for Oulu finalized the 6-2 result. Ville Pokka collected 4 points tonight.

Tweets by @eurohockey