HIFK one game from the Finnish title

16 Apr 2011 | Henrik Lundqvist

HIFK Helsinki beat Blues 5-3 in the third of the Finnish SM-Liiga finals and are now ahead 3-0. One win from the championship title.

HIFK Helsinki

5:3

Espoo Blues

The game winner from the first two games, Robert Nyholm, opened the scoring at 2:33 and Juha-Pekka Haataja increased the lead six minutes later. Blues got their first goal at 16:32 when Jani Lajunen scored.

The score was 2-1 for over 20 minutes. The important fourth goal was scored by HIFK's Toni Söderholm. With 10 minutes remaining of the game Arttu Luttinen made it 3-2 but HIFK replied with 4-2 (Martti Järventie) and 5-2 (Juha-Pekka Haataja).

Haataja was the man of the day with two goals: "A big reason why my game runs fine is that I get to be healthy. But it's no secret that I play with good players, so it is easy to manage".

Two minutes before the end Blues got a 5-3 goal. Once again scored by Arttu Luttinen. But they never got any closer and HIFK won to take a 3-0 lead of the series.

Game 4 is played on Monday in Espoo.

"The excitement and intensity escalate match by match. That's what you know before Monday," said HIFK's Head Coach Kari Jalonen.

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