The quarterfinals of the Ice Hockey Women’s League started on Saturday. HIFK, who stormed to victory in the regular season last weekend, were responsible for the biggest victory, crushing Kärppi in their home arena in Pirkkola no less than 12–0.
HIFK took the opening set 3–0 and struck as many as five times in the second set. In the final set, it hit four more times. Kati Asikainen stretched the path of the puck 44 times with Kärppie’s goal, while playing his first career playoff game Kia Lahtinen came through at the other end with 15 saves.
Kärppi’s head coach Sanna Lankosaari according to the visitors’ backbone was already broken in the opening set.
– Fourteen minutes seemed to be roughly the time on the clock, when the tendon rupture that had plagued the entire season, which was completely understandable with a young team, came. It has been very fluctuating our play always within the game. There can be many reasons, but for quite a few today was the first playoffs match, but that’s where the break happened, in the first set, Lankosaari acknowledged.
HIFK can also play Sunday’s quarter-final match at home. The suggestion for this came from Kärpi.
– For cost reasons, this is above all a financial solution for us, Lankosaari opened.
If you could decide now, would you do it differently?
– Absolutely not.
According to Lankosaari, Kärpät will start the match on Sunday with a clean slate.
– If you think about the playoffs, it’s only about one win in the series, the game ends 1–0 or 12–0. Tomorrow, we are primarily aiming to get the agreed-upon things done in the first 20 minutes. And hopefully from then on. We’re going to fight tomorrow full of energy.
In the IFK camp, the atmosphere was naturally the opposite. The head coach Saara Niemi praised the team’s good preparation for the match.
– We got the goal taps open right away in the first period and the focus remained on doing from one change to the next. Although more goals started to come in the second period, the game never fell apart. A strong 60 minutes from the team, these are mental battles, a good performance that way.
HIFK, aiming for the first Women’s League championship in history, won all the teams’ mutual struggles in the regular season with a total of 29–3 goals. Nevertheless, Niemi expected a more even series.
– These are always new games. Probably at some point the opponent started to worry and think about the future.
The level differences in the Women’s League have been talked about for years. Already at the start of the season, some of the head coaches expressed their concern about the level of the league, as the best players flee to Sweden and the average age of the league decreases.
– The other games in the series were tight. This is just one game, tomorrow we will certainly have a completely different Kärpät against us. Even though the result was big, I wouldn’t draw any conclusions from this, Niemi acknowledged.
HIFK published its coaches for next season on Friday. Niemi, who led IFK to silver last year, continues to coach the club for the sixth year. Peninsula was named HIFK’s head coach, (you move to another service) when the team started its journey from Mestis in the 2018–19 season.
– When I joined, there was talk of a five-year project. Time has passed quickly. Has been able to build all of this from scratch and be a part of it. However, the decision to continue was quite easy. It’s good to be here, there’s no need to go anywhere at this point. I’m really happy that I can continue, Niemi concluded.
The reigning champion bowed to Kuortane
Ilves won three of the team’s four matches in the regular season, but HPK, who played an up-and-coming season, gave a storm warning in their home opener of the quarterfinals. HPK’s most effective player, who took a clear 5–0 victory, had collected three assist points Heta Seikkula. Julia Matejkova, Saimi Lehto and Kit Seikkula gathered all powers 1+1. Nora Räty kept his goal clean and stretched in the path of the puck 33 times.
KalPa defeated TPS 4–1 at home. Kuortane was responsible for the surprise of the round, who claimed a 4–3 victory over reigning champion Kiekko-Espoo. Emilia Kyrkko blocked Kuortanene’s goal a total of 37 times.
The end of the season for the Espoo team was a minor success, as Kiekko-Espoo lost both of their matches on the final weekend of the regular season. Ilves was stronger at home by as much as 7–1 and HPK claimed a 2–0 victory over Espoo in the final round. The Kuortane defeat was the third in a row for Espoo.
The second legs of the Women’s League quarterfinals will be played tomorrow, Sunday. The playoffs are played on a best-of-five system, except for the bronze medal match, which is one-legged.