Liiga – Latest additions lift Jokerit to derby win

You know what they say: New brooms sweep clean! And there was no better day for Jokerit to find out about the truth of that saying than the derby against IFK Helsinki.

7 minutes into the game IFK had to see its first player Ryan Thang leave for the penalty box. On the ice for the power-play was NHL veteran Ladislav Nagy, who arrived in Helsinki in late November from Kosice. 22 seconds later the puck was in the net for Jokerit’s go ahead goal. Janne Lahti converted a setup from Nagy and Mikko Kousa.

In the first two periods the audience witnessed an equal fight between the two city rivals and consequently IFK got the equalizer in one of their power-play opportunities through Ville Peltonen. As both goalies Antti Ore and Leland Irving continued to have a good game, Jokerit started gaining momentum in the last period with a shot advantage of 11-5.

With three and a half minutes to go it was once again Ladislav Nagy, who decided the game for Jokerit. This time the assist went to Niko Peltola, who just arrived from Ilves Tampere to join the jokers. For Nagy it was the second straight day he played a key role in a game-winning goal after he assisted on Janne Lahti’s 3-2 yesterday against HPK.

With the win Jokerit moves up within 1 point behind HIFK. The battle for Helsinki is re-opened.

While Jokerit is slowly moving up again, it is none other than European Trophy winner JYP, who struggled most on the weekend. After striking out in Oulu yesterday with 3-1 (Atte Ohtamaa and Jari Viuhkola with 2 points each), they fell short to Tappara today. But at least they got a point from today’s match and showed some real spirit as they had to fight back from a 0-3 and 2-4 deficit. Jani Tuppurainen scored two goals while captain Eric Perrin assisted on three goals. Finally it was Josh Green’s duty to send the extra point to Tampere with his second goal of the day.

But Tampere was definitely the winner of the weekend. Not only did Tappara secure another win yesterday beating Rauma with 3-0 (Olli Palola with 2 goals and Andy Chiodo with the shut-out), Ilves also won both its matches.

Yesterday Ilves won 4-2 in Kuopio in a game that might have been a disappointing affair for people, who were stuck in a traffic jam somewhere, because both teams proofed to be early birds. It took KalPa exactly 2 minutes and 10 seconds to establish a 2-goal lead, just to see it disappear 2 minutes and 21 seconds later. After that it took Ilves 43 minutes to add something to the scoresheet, but as we learned in this game goals always come in pairs. So it took Kai Kantola and Ville Korhonen 1 minute and 20 seconds to make it 4-2.

This afternoon Ilves hosted Ässät Pori and after another speedy start (Juuso Rajala scored at the 2:35 mark), they fell asleep for a bit. It was only Kamil Kreps’ 1-3, which woke them up again. Until the end of the second period they had already turned it around to a 4-3 and in the end Mikko Kukkonen could send the puck in the empty net for a 5-3 finish.

Tappara is still in 2^nd place nine points behind Kärpät, while Ilves has a bit more air to breathe now in 9^th place in their fight for a pre-playoff spot.

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