The Czech Republic tore the Lions’ defense to pieces – the HIFK goalkeeper’s honest assessment of his level after his national team debut

The Czech Republic beat Finnish hockey in the Euro Hockey Tour match in Tampere by no less than 7–3. Leijon’s Niko Huuhtanen scored a goal in his national team debut.

The Czech Republic crushed Finland no less than 7–3 in the Euro Hockey Tour match in Tampere. The Czech Republic led after two fast-paced sets with goals 5–3 and managed to improve the numbers in the final set.

Striker David Tomasek luckily completed his second hit of the night in the middle of the third set. In the end, the match was a sad national team debut Roope Tapose As Finland’s goalkeeper, because six goals slipped behind his back.

– The result is what it is. It wasn’t the best start for us, but we fought well in the second set to our own level, Taponen said after the match in an interview with .

Taponen has been HIFK’s number one goalkeeper in the SM league this season. The 22-year-old goalkeeper found a clear difference between an international match and domestic series matches.

– The game is much faster than in the domestic league. There are practically four against the top teams in the league. Good guys and fast puck, Taponen said after the match in an interview with .

The young goalkeeper met his level honestly.

– There is a lot of work ahead, this taught me a lot. There are no ready goalkeepers yet, Taponen referred to his own level.

The final score was 7–3 in the match Radan Lenc, when Finland applied for a reduction without a goalkeeper well before the end of the final period. Seven goals were last scored against Finland in 2017. At that time, the Czech Republic beat Finland 7–1 in the EHT tournament.

The biggest heroes of the Czech Republic had scored two goals to a man Matej Stransky, Daniel Vozenilek and Tomasek.

A wild start to the match from the Czech Republic

The Czech Republic started the match dully, as Vozenilek, Stransky and Vozenilek once again scored to give the team a 3-0 lead in less than 13 minutes.

At the same time, Taponen’s debut in goal for Finland got off to a sad start.

– I was able to pull myself together quite well, even though the last two rounds were not my best performances, Taponen analyzed.

The Czech Republic clearly pressed the first half of the opening set, but Niko Huuhtanen The 1–3 narrow goal woke up both the Finnish team and the home crowd to the match. This is how Huuhtanen managed to score in his first national match.

– At first I thought that I would pass when we got into a two-on-one attack. However, I saw that it was not Birch tree (Ville) was free and I decided to shoot myself, Huuhtanen reported his goal to .

Finland started the second set with a completely different attitude than the opening set. Completed a hat-trick against Switzerland Antti Suomela brought Finland into the lead after just over five minutes of play.

The attacker’s shot slipped past the Czech keeper, who blocked it in his current home arena, with unbelievable ease Jakub Malek too from armpit to finish. Malek has represented Tampere Ilves in the SM league this and last season.

Eemil Erholtz leveled the score at 3-3 just over two minutes later. Finland was razed Jukka Jalonen long attacks into the opponent’s defensive zone, typical of the head coach’s season.

In addition to equalizing, Finland also had opportunities to score the lead goal, so the control of the game turned from strong to Finland.

Oskari Laaksonen However, a freeze at the end of the set interrupted Finland’s strong phase, and Tomasek shot the Czechs into a 4–3 lead. Finland’s defense was broken again only a minute later, when Matej Stransky scored his second goal of the evening from a counterattack.

Finland’s strong start melted away in an instant.

– Those two goals came in a bad place, it was a bit like the last nail. We didn’t get a good spin in the final set, but it was more of an end-to-end game, Huuhtanen estimates.