Once again this season the Hakametsä audience got to immortalize Ilves taking three points on Friday, October 9th by this time defeating Jukurit 5-1. Ilves´ scorers were Eetu Päkkilä, Santeri Hatakka, Arttu Ruotsalainen (with two scores) as well as Matias Maccelli. Ilves´ captain Eemeli Suomi reached the 100-point mark in assists in the League.
Eetu Päkkilä´s comeback paid off
Ilves was active already from the very start and got its first power play minutes at 3:08 following Ville Leskinen (Jukurit) taking 2 minutes from hooking. Ilves´ Eemeli Suomi got the first scoring opportunity but Sami Rajaniemi blocked and hold the numbers in 0-0. Rajaniemi made another great save in the 6th minute when bloching the shot by Samuli Vainionpää who received a great pass from Antti Saarela right in front of the net.
Ilves´ third line Matias Maccelli – Panu Mieho – Roby Järventie was dominating the game on their part and Maccelli made a great shot towards the goal but unluckily the puck did not find its way behind the Jukurit goalie.
The puck first hit the target at 10:51. Santeri Hatakka played it towards the the blue line from where Eetu Päkkilä, playing his first League game this season, made a sharp and accurate wrist shot. 1-0 to Ilves.
Soon after Jarkko Parikka was penalized for hooking at 13:09. Jukurit forward Simon Stransky shot twice and was organizing two other scoring opportunities for Jukurit but Ilves´ Eetu Mäkinen kept a clean sheet.
At 19:40 Jukurit still got another power play chance following Ilves´ Samuli Vainionpää being penalized for hooking. However, the second goal of the match kept waiting and Jukurit got to start the second period with some power play minutes left.
Ilves continues on a good track
At 20:43 also Ilves´ Jarkko Parikka was sentenced to a penalty box for the delay of the game. Ilves´ Eetu Mäkinen blocked the first great shot during a 5-on-3 situation. While the second penalty was still on, Ilves´ Arttu Ruotsalainen and Joona Ikonen got a chance to attack in the 2-on-1 situation, however, without a greater success. Ilves continued dominating the game also after the penalties. Juuso Välimäki was awarded a penalty shot at 26:21 but his attempt ended up hitting the boards.
At 26:54 Ilves changed the numbers to 2-0. Joona Ikonen left the puck his behind and Ilves´ captain Eemeli Suomi passed it to Santeri Hatakka who then scored. Notably, it was only the second goal for this Ilves defender in his League career.
At 30:06 Ilves scored already for the third time and what a goal it was indeed! Joona Ikonen passed the puck to Eemeli Suomi who then, almost ´half-blind´, offered a pass to Arttu Ruotsalainen skating behind him. After finding the optimal spot Ruotsalainen hit the open net. 3-0 for Ilves, a first goal for Ruotsalainen in this season and a 100th point with assist for Eemeli Suomi.
Both teams got their power play chances still after the scores but neither of them succeeded in scoring so that gave Ilves a 3-0 lead when going into the final period.
Maccelli and Ruotsalainen finish the game
At the start of the final period Jukurit narrowed the deficit to 3-1 at 44:38. Julius Vähätalo and Santeri Salmela passed the puck to Axel Rindell whose sharp wrist shot hit the net behind Ilves´ goalie.
During the first half of the final period there were only a few top goal scoring opportunities although both goalies got to equally show off their skills. At 51:28 Ilves´ scored again ´, however, the goal was disallowed as a result of the video review which showed that the player did hit the puck into the net with the use of his hands.
After a short moment Santeri Salmela from Jukurit was penalized for hooking at 51:49. Matias Maccelli made use of this chance and hit the puck into the top corner of the net from the left wing and took Ilves to 4-1 lead at 53:06. Assists were attributed to Juuso Välimäki, who made his first remarks in scoring points as well as to the 18-year-old Roby Järventie who continues with his path of one point per match.
Ilves´ final score was seen at 57:13 when Arttu Ruotsalainen, following a great preparatory work by Miro Nalli and Juuso Välimäki, hit the puck confidently into the net behind Sami Rajaniemi. This being the last statistic marked, Ilves grabbed three points over Jukurit with clear numbers 5-1.
Next games
Tomorrow Ilves is heading to Kouvola where it will face their home team KooKoo. On Friday next week Ilves will be having an away game against Lahden Pelicans after which it will hosting Porin Ässät in Hakametsä on Saturday 17th of October. As opposed to usual, this Saturday game will start at 6:30 pm.
