Goalie made a 25-save shutout and Teemu Rautiainen reached 100-goal milestone.
Although Matias Maccelli and Panu Mieho were missing from the roster, Ilves was the favourite to win the match. KalPa has pretty much secured ninth spot in the standings so they didn’t have too much pressure point-wise. Is this going to affect their performance? Got to give sort of a shoutout for the fans who came all the way from “Savo” to chant the visiting team!
The first period included a few clean and hard hits from both of the teams. Especially Aleksi Elorinne showed his physical ability. One could say that it was a period of old-school hockey: lots of hitting, delivering the puck towards net and seeking rebounds. Ilves also had a couple of dangerous counterattacks but no goals.
Ilves had a great opportunity to open the scoring as they played on a two-man advantage right at the beginning of the second period. Both powerplay units got a few decent chances but they should have done better job since they had nearly two minutes of time to grind the first goal of the game. At 12:35 of the second period, Niko Peltola scored with a blast from the blue line. Overall, it felt that Ilves had a good grip of the game and shortly after Peltola’s goal, the first line had a long offensive shift which forced KalPa to take another penalty. No more goals were scored in the second period, though.
The third period was filled with penalties. As a result, the momentum tilted. The scariest moment had to be Miikka Pitkänen’s scary hit that involved Eemeli Suomi. Luckily, Suomi didn’t suffer any injury and he was able to play rest of the match. KalPa’s Pitkänen got a match penalty. Although Ilves didn’t capitalize this long powerplay opportunity, they managed to score one before Pitkänen’s major penalty: at 3:48 KalPa’s scoring leader Kai Kantola and Joona Riekkinen witnessed Teemu Rautiainen’s 100th career goal from the penalty box. Arttu Ruotsalainen scored his 13th goal of the season to an empty net.
One of the loudest and happiest person in the crowd had to be Rautiainen’s mother, Eija. Obviously, she was extremely proud of her son.
– Hockey means everything for Teemu. He is ready to do whatever it takes if it’s about hockey. Teemu is grateful for that he is able to do this every day, says Eija.
To conclude, there was no doubt which team had the edge on Saturday and Ilves got what they deserved; a solid 3-0 victory and three points. As there is only a few regular season games left, every single point can make a difference. Ilves is currently fourth in the standings and tries to secure home-ice advantage for the playoffs. What makes it interesting, is that Lukko is third and KooKoo is fifth and only four points separate these three teams.
