Ilves’ free fall continues

When the season started in september people did not expect the championship from Ilves, but at least a decent run towards the play-offs. And it started quite well. After a month and 9 games of hockey Ilves could be found amongst the top teams with a 7-2 record. But with an overtime loss to HIFK things started to turn against the Tampere team.

In the next 28 games Ilves could only leave the ice victorious 6 times, leading to a free fall down the standings into a 14^th and second to last place at the time being. The only team they still carry a 2 point margin on is Hämeenlinna.

This weekend Ilves lost another two consecutive games extending their losing streak to 5 games and only one win out of the last 12. Yesterday they could equalize a powerplay-goal by JYP's Mikko Kalteva 6 minutes later through Kai Kantola, who cleaned up a rebound on a powerplay of their own, just to fall 2-1 to JYP when, again a few minutes later, Petr Hubacek benefited from a turnover on JYP's blue line with a break-away to score the game-winning goal for JYP.

On friday in Rauma it was a much more one-sided affair. Ilves could not even break Ryan Zapolski's shutout and so the Lukko goals by Toni Koivisto, Aaron Gagnon, Teemu Nurmi and Janne Lahti led Rauma to a 4-0 home win.

At the top Kärpät could keep its lead over HIFK with two victories. On friday Saku Mäenalanen scored the game-winning overtime goal in a 2-1 win in Lappeenranta, while they needed 4 goals to beat Hämeenlinna yesterday afternoon with 4-3.

Helsinki managed to beat KalPa with a lone power-play goal by Siim Liivik in the last period and should probably thank goalie Ville Husso for his 23 saves along the way. Another shutout went to Tappara's Dominik Hrachovina, who kept his team in the game in Lahti. As for Helsinki it was also a lone last period goal, that gave Tappara three points. Jere Karjalainen scored it at the 48:33 minute mark putting in a rebound off a shot from Jan-Mikael Järvinen.

Tweets by @eurohockey