Liiga – Ville Husso moves HIFK to the top

30 Sep 2014 | Markus Nisius

HIFK beats the reigning champion in the shootout to get into first place, while Samu Perhonen celebrates a memorable and unexpected Liiga debut in Kuopio.

Tuesday night was dominated by outstanding goalie performances. And in Kuopio it really didn’t look like it earlier in the day. Shortly before the game news spread around that Eero Kilpelainen, who performed really well in the beginning of the season, will miss the game with an injury. So Sami Perhonen, the young third round pick of the Edmonton Oilers, got surprised by making his Liiga debut. As it turned out he couldn’t have asked for a better day to do so. In the first period he had to face only one shot, but he kept being concentrated and managed to turn away the 15 following shots as well to make it also his first shut-out in the elite league. At the front end it was Antti Halonen, who scored the lone goal of the day at the games’s halftime mark to give KalPa a 1-0 win over first placed Lappeenranta.

This place will now be occupied by HIFK as there was another goalie celebrating a shut-out in Oulu, which moved his team past Lappeenranta. Ville Husso blocked 34 shots against champion Kärpät to lead his team into the shootout. And as both teams needed 9 attempts each to find a winner, Husso could add 6 saves in the shootout before Jasse Ikonen converted one penalty to make it the game-winner.

But that is not all. One more shut-out was achieved. Rauma’s Ryan Zapolski had 17 saves against Vaasa in 3-0 win for Lukko. Aaron Gagnon, Toni Koivisto and Janne Niskala scored for Rauma. More goals could be seen in Jyväskylä. The Pelicans grabbed the lead twice before the second intermission, but Eric Perrin could prevent a loss for JYP with a 3-point performancefor a 4-2 win. In Espoo Roope Talaja, Kai Kantola and Miro Altonen secured the third win of the season for the Blues against Turku, which could only score twice.