Ice hockey league leaders SaiPa and JYP won their first matches this year. Otherwise, all eyes will be on Leo Komarov, who will make his debut at the Finnish main league level after a long time.
SaiPa avoided its tenth consecutive defeat by defeating HIFK 3–2 in overtime. It was the winning goal Santeri Airola handwriting in 65.51.
The last time the crew from Lappeenranta had won HIFK at Nordis three and a half years ago.
SaiPa’s head coach Ville Hämäläinen told the media conference that the serial jumbo is still playing for big things. According to him, HIFK played strongly on Wednesday.
Injured during last fall’s training season and was sidelined for the entire early season Leo Komarov, 36, made his first appearance in the SM league in a HIFK jersey after a 15-year break. The last time he appeared in the domestic main league was in the 2008–2009 season.
Komarov appeared together in the triple chain of the people from Helsinki Vincent Marleau and Joonas Raskin with. The Olympic champion and world champion played a good 13 minutes against SaiPa, shot twice on goal, took a few starts with 66.7 percent and marked -1 in the power statistics.
– It’s gone now, my body felt good. This should be improved. The feel of the game is faster than in training. By playing it will get better. There was also tension. It was a good sign, because then playing is still interesting. SaiPa played well and fought. Jossing doesn’t help here, said Komarov.
HIFK coach Ville Peltonen was happy about the return of the konkar striker to real action after the early autumn training games.
– Leksa has worked patiently for a long time. It was great to have him back. He brought electricity to the start of the match and played with composure today. The important thing was that he gets to play now.
A relief win for JYP and Heiskanen
JYP surprised Tappara 2–1 in the hockey SM league and ended their nine-game losing streak in Tampere.
Defender Teemu Eronen played his celebratory match, his 500th league game of his career, and in honor of that he finished with a handsome deciding goal in 57.23.
– We took the burden of winning and disbelief off our shoulders. Now we can only focus on improving the game. By the way, this won’t help tomorrow when we play in Kouvola. I think we’ve already had pretty good prospects in the last three, four games. Today we were perhaps even lucky, Eronen estimates.
It was a win To Mikko Heiskanen the first of his head coaching career. JYP fired the coaching duo Jukka Rautakorpi – To Ville Niemis December 20, when the club was sixth in the League measured by average points.
– You have to be proud of the team. We were at the core today, victory always releases energy. The leadership at the end of the match was great. Wine (Vehviläinen) was good at the goal and Jerry (From Turku) as well as Teemu (Divorce) made a great solution, Heiskanen praised his protégés.
Pelicans have the most profitable winning streak in club history
The good-natured Pelicans got their seventh consecutive three-point win by crushing TPS 7–2.
In the club’s main league history, there have been two previous seven-game winning streaks, but not before this with a full three-point pot.
People from Lahti Aleks Haatanen, Lubos Horky and Patrik Carlsson summed up the points 1+1. The Pelicans took fourth place in the series.
– The team is really strong mentally at the moment. It produces all the time, commented the Pelicans pilot Tommi Niemelä for STT.
HIFK – SaiPa and 2–3 (2-2.0-0.0-0)
64.51 2-3 Airola (Kivenmäki, Morand)
Pelicans- TPS 7–2 (1-1.3-0.3-1)
Tappara – JYP 1–2 (1-0.0-1.0-1)
57.23 1-2 Eronen (from Turku)
Aces – Sport 4–1 (0-0.2-0.2-1)
Series table