HIFK enters Christmas break on a high note

With 2 wins on monday and tuesday HIFK was able to grab the maximum amount of points out of its last games before Christmas and could gain some ground in the standings. Arttu Luttinen turned out to be one of the matchwinners in both games.

Against Ilves on Monday he scored a hattrick with goals just 13 minutes apart in the second and early third period. The scoring was opened that night by Jasse Ikonen, but after 12 minutes and after Vojtech Polak managed to get the equalizer, HIFK could pull away to 6-1 with Luttinen’s goals and those of Thomas Nykopp and Joonas Rask. The only thing that was left for Ilves to contribute to the game was a second goal by Turo Asplund.

The next night Vaasa was equally hopeless against a strong HIFK team that found its rhythm early on with a powerplay goal by Juuso Puustinen. Early in the second Sami Blomqvist doubled the score for Helsinki when he put in a rebound through traffic in front of the goal, just before Luttinen could strike the fourth time in just 2 games. The first marker for Vaasa by Matt Generous held only for 7 minutes when Tomas Zaborsky sealed the deal 40 seconds into the last frame to secure a 4-1 win for HIFK.

HIFK climbed into 4^th spot now and continues to show the most consistent season of all teams and seems to have one of the deepest offenses as well as the scoring keeps coming from all lines.

Only 2 points ahead of HIFK in the top position is Kärpät Oulu. They secured their very own Christmas present in the top spot by a 4-0 shutout against SaiPa. Oulu could establish a decisive 2-0 lead after the first period since the “Joonas Brothers” were on fire. After only 36 seconds Joonas Donskoi grabbed a rebound and found the hole in SaiPa’s defense. With 2 minutes to go in the first period it was Joonas Kemppainen, who converted a nice cross ice pass from Mika Pyörälä. Two empty net goals were added later on by Kamppainen and Mikko Alikoski, while Tomi Karhunen helped his team with 32 saves.

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