HIFK wins longest Liiga game ever

15 Mar 2015 | Markus Nisius

Both games today in the Finnish Pre-Playoffs went into overtime. While SaiPa could rather quickly finish it, Ilves and HIFK had to go a longer distance.

Ilves Tampere vs Helsinki IFK 1-2 OT4, series 0-2

HIFK won yesterday and so they could finish it and move on to the next round. But Ilves was not up for this idea yet. Two minutes into the second period Steven Zalewski scored to give Ilves the lead. Later on Aleksi Mustonen missed out on converting a penalty shot and this should come back to haunt Ilves. At the 42:07 mark Arttu Luttinen could equalize the game on the powerplay and sent the game into a long lasting overtime.

With 13 seconds left in the first overtime Vojtech Polak could have ended it in Ilves’s favour, but like Mustonen before he missed his penalty shot against IFK goalie Kevin Lankinen and so the people saw three more overtimes, adding up to 134:14 minutes of ice-hockey, the longest game in Liiga history. HIFK goalie Kevin Lankinen needed to help his team with 58 saves, while his counterpart Joonas Korpisalo collected 47 of them. In the end it was Mika Partanen, who could lift HIFK over Ilves and bring his team into the quarterfinals, where they will face Tappara.

Ässät Pori vs SaiPa Lappeenranta 1-2 OT, series 0-2

After destroying Ässät yesterday at home with a 6-0, SaiPa was ready to make the final push towards the quarter finals today in Pori. But Pori scored first early in the second period and gave its fans some hope when Valtteri Viljanen found the back of the net. However, this feeling shouldn’t stay too long as Sam Lofquist even up the result soon after. After four and a half minutes in overtime it was Chad Rau, who gave SaiPa the edge and led Lappeenranta into the quarters with a 2-0 series sweep over Pori. SaiPa will go on to face Kärpät Oulu.