JYP and Jokerit ready for SM-liiga semifinals
KalPa and Kärpät need another win.
Blues-KalPa 3-1
(series 1-3)
Blues and KalPa
continued their hard hitting series. Blues wasn't yet ready for summer holliday
and their fought for their season. KalPa wasn't prepared as good to the game as
usual and Blues used their chance. Blues' hero was two goal defender Ari Vallin.
KalPa's top goalie Mikko Koskinen was suspended because of fighting in last
game with Tommi Huhtala. Juha Toivonen didn't have his best day and first goal
for Blues went in too easily.
There was another
major penalty when KalPa's Jukka Hentunen's blind side hit sent Blues' Camilo
Miettinen to the hospital. According first reports Miettinen's collarbone was
fractured. During 5 min powerplay Blues scored their third goal and game was
over.
Kärpät-Pelicans 4-1
(series 3-1)
Wild card qualifier
Kärpät has put regular season runner up Pelicans against the wall. Kärpät leads
series with three wins to one and their game looks very solid at the moment.
Kärpät defense is like a rock and their offense scores much more efficient than
Pelicans'. Also Pelican's makes pretty easy mistakes which Kärpät has used very
efficient. Furthermore former Finnish national team coach Hannu Aravirta has
found perfect game system against Pelicans. Kärpät's Juha-Pekka Haataja scored
a hat trick.
Jokerit-HIFK 2-0
(series 4-0)
Playoffs' biggest
surprise so far was this series. Jokerit's win wasn't that big of a surprise
but the way they did it and how poor HIFK, reigning Finnish champion, looked in
this series was a huge surprise and disappointment for HIFK and their fans.
HIFK played very good icehockey at the end of regular season and they started
playoffs as a biggest favourite for championship. However they never found a
solution to Jokerit's defensive trap and also couldn't score when they had a
chance. Also Jokerit's goalie Eero Kilpeläinen is playing very good springtime
hockey. Futhermore HIFK's top players, Ville Peltonen, Mikael Granlund among
others, never found their best form.
This decisive game
was just like previous three games. HIFK tried and tried but Jokerit scored. Jokerit's
first goal was pretty much the picture af the whole series: two HIFK's
defenders collided on their own blueline and Nichlas Hardt could skate freely
to the goal and score the winning goal. With this outstanding series Jokerit
played themselves as a biggest favourite for the championship.
Ässät-JYP 1-4 (series
0-4)
Another series which
was decided straight 4-0. Allthough all games in the series were pretty tight
Ässät actually never really could challenge JYP. Also in this last game things
went like in previous games: JYP used their momentum but Ässät didn't. Year
2009 champion JYP used those few mistakes that Ässät defense made, their
powerplay was better and they used also scoring chances with better efficiency.
And on top of that JYP has Sami Vatanen. This skilfull little guy, who most
likely joins Anaheim's NHL organization next season, did almost what he wanted.
Bad news allhough game in the third period when Vatanen hurt his ankle and was
helped out of the rink. After the game there wasn't still info how badly he
hurt.