Liiga – It’s a Helsinki goalfest

Christmas time is coming in the land that is known for being the home of Santa Claus. Snow has already started to cover the country under a calm and white blanket. Time to think about your Christmas presents for your loved ones.But as far as ice-hockey is concerned, don’t expect a lot of presents coming from the capital this year. The Helsinki teams were both quite hungry for treats themselves on the weekend.

On Thursday HIFK started the show with a 5-1 rout over champion Ässät Pori. On Pori’s side only NHL veteran Niklas Hagman could convert one of the 32 shots IFK goalie Ville Husso had to face. IFK left wing Arttu Luttinen opened the scoring and assisted on two more goals for three points.

With the confidence drawn from this game they travelled to Kuopio on Saturday and continued where they left off. This time Luttinen could only assist on the 4^th IFK goal by Eero Somervuori, but other teammates stepped up. Ville Peltonen scored 3 goals, two of them came on the powerplay, and rounded up his outcome of those games to 5 points. But the game was closer than the 6-1 final result might tell you for a long time. Peltonen’s first goal could be equalized by Petri Lammassaari at the 15:31 mark. And even in the second period the only addition to the scoresheet came by Peltonen’s first power-play marker. However KalPa might have misinterpreted the second horn as the final one, because in the last period they didn’t show up any more. Four more HIFK goals sealed the deal and - even more important – set the tone for Tuesday’s rematch in Helsinki. KalPa definitely has to forget what happened quick and get ready for a new chance.

While KalPa got beat up by the Helsinki team, that we will still see in Liiga next season, the other team Jokerit was just about to tune up for some KHL hockey next year. The Pelicans, which seemed unbeatable in the early stages of the season, managed to withstand the Jokerit pressure for exactly 08 minutes and 32 seconds. Then it was the honor of Esa Lindell and Jani Rita to break the barricades within 43 seconds. After Antti-Jussi Niemi’s third for Jokerit there was a short period of resistance from Lahti’s side. Well, from Vili Sopanen’s side to be correct. Like Lindell and Rita in the first period, Sopanen just needed 43 seconds for his two goals, both set up by hockey journeyman Tyler Redenbach. But this was the end of the story for the Pelicans, which still have to find the man who takes over the scoring of Radek Smolenak, who left for the KHL.Juhani Tyrväinen and Aleksi Rekonen secured a 3 goal margin before the second break, while Tomi Mäki, Nichlas Hardt and again Jani Rita challenged the scoreboard in Lahti in the last period to make it a 8-2 final score.

With 19 combined goals in 3 games by the Helsinki teams you might have expected Espoo to be in big trouble tonight at home against Jokerit, but maybe the Jokers used up all their fire powder as they were blanked tonight by Norwegian goalie Lars Volden. Besides Volden’s shutout, the star of the match was without a doubt Daniel Widing, who scored both goals in the Blues 2-0 win.

But one other team should be mentioned that is on a similar run as the teams from the capital. Lappeenranta’s SaiPa beat both Ilves Tampere and European Trophy finalist Jyväskylä 5-1. As in Espoo the man of the match was the goalie: Jussi Markkanen stopping 30 and 36 shots respectively. On offense the line of Jesper Piitulainen, Ville Koho and Janne Tavi is unstoppable right now. In the two games on Thursday and Saturday this line combined for 14 points alone. SaiPa’s next game will bring them to Hämeenlinna on Wednesday, while Jokerit can refill their canons for TPS Turku on Friday.

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