Huml turns around game and series

The crowd in Tampere’s Hakametsä was looking forward to Tappara taking the 2-0 lead in the series and make another step towards the first championship since 2003. And the beginning of the game was pointing in this direction. 2:42 minutes into the game Josh Green opened the scoring with a shot from the blue line. After that Tappara was the dominant team and had another big chance through Green in the second period when he danced with the puck through the defense and only missed the open net by inches. Shortly after the puck ended up in the Kärpät net again when a pass in front of the goal from Kristian Kuusela got deflected a couple of times and finally jumped into the goal from Ben Maxwell’s skates.

Kärpät Oulu understood the message. With the start of the last period they were a different team. Straight from the locker room Joonas Donskoi received the puck in the slot, made a few more steps towards the goal and got it in to cut the lead in half. 7 minutes later Ivan Huml tied the game when Markus Kankaanperä was unable to clear a puck that was brought to the goal by Maxwell and Huml tipped in the loose puck.

This meant the game went into overtime and 9 minutes in it was again a loose puck that could not be cleared by Tappara’s defense and again Huml said thank you and decided the game in Oulu’s favour. The series will go back tied at one game each to Oulu tomorrow.

The bronze medal in Liiga went to JYP Jyväskylä, who could beat Lukko Rauma 2-1 with goals from Tuomas Pihlman and Mikko Luoma.

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