What a way to loose, sigh. 15 seconds can make a hell of a difference. Last year HIFK lost at home to Saipa by a last minute goal, but who cares about Saipa. Jokerit, however, is an other story - conceding a tying goal with fifteen seconds left in regulation time is horrible, but loosing in over time on top of that is unbearable.
Pre game ceremonies today were in honour of living legend Pertti Lehtonen whose #23 was hoisted to the rafters as the capacity crowd gave him a standing ovation. With Pepe out of the roster one starts to feel old as the only player older than yours truly now has retired. Happy retirement Pepe and thank you very much !
The game started with Jokerit looking more focused and making less errors. They also got the opening goal on a bad change by HIFK leaving the opposition with an opportunity resulting in a 2-1 situation converted into a nice goal.
Mika Nieminen equalised on a brilliant pass from Tomi Lydman that he deflected in. This was Nieminenīs first goal for HIFK. After this goal the momentum changed gradually towards HIFK and it resulted in Brian Rafalskiīs fourth goal of the season on a very hard shot through traffic. Gettin one up left HIFK controlling the game and everything pointed at an well deserved win, but with fifteen seconds to go ......
It appears that you canīt win against the top teams if your defence corps are this heavily reduced by injuries. The problem lies in the fact that the NHL starts not earlier than Oct 10th which means that the final roster cuts wonīt happen until in two weeks time.
Niklas Hagman appeared to be the most fired up HIFK player showing a lot of leadership with his positive appearance. Possibly having his father behind the Jokerit bench helped him to gain some extra will to show what heīs got. Borsato and Caloun were again to my liking as well as Rafalski and Karalahti. Kortelainen has not done a big impression so far and I miss the fighting spirit of Markku Hurme very sparsely used so far. Give Hurme a regular job instead of Mäkiaho (until Mīs fully fit at least!)
The stars for this one were crystal clear before the last 15 seconds, but I had to scrap Lundell as I canīt give stars to a goalie after this end to the game.
Stars:
#1 Brian Rafalski
#2 Mika Nieminen
#3 Niklas Hagman