HIFK-HPK 3-5 16.02.1997

With a little luck....

Criticizing the ref won´t change anything and is therefore useless, but last years "most promising" ref Rami Savolainen has surely turned into the "most predigious" ref.

Once again HIFK got penalty after penalty and the only one fired up on the ice was the ref. HPK used this to its advantage scoring 3 on a one-man advantage.

HIFK equalised late in the third only to concede the decisive goal on a horrendous defensive error. After that the game was over. HPK completed the scoring with an empty netter.

The swede line again played well but scoring is too tough. O.Jokinen is still very inconsistent resulting in mediocre performances like yesterdays. Kortelainen is still out of form. The positive line yesterday was Hurme-Sihvonen-Laukkanen(2+0).

The defence played well, in general, Kaj Linna (yes, I´ve mostly been criticizing him !) showed in this game that he´s got the fighting spirit and the SPEED which he´s been missing so far.

The task to get in to the play-offs gets tougher, but the near future program looks easy enough : Saipa (a), Ässät (h), Lukko (h)

Stars of the game:

*** Laukkanen

** Eriksson, Linna, Wahlberg

* Sihvonen, Puolanne