Although their Finnish league campaign has not been so successful lately, SaiPa Lappeenranta will try to get back on track in the CHL quarter-finals against a Liiga foe – Kärpät Oulu, who have three former SaiPa players.

by Kalle Mantere

LAPPEENRANTA – SaiPa Lappeenranta have had their ups and downs in the past two months. Even though they beat Geneve-Servette in the first round of the CHL playoffs, they've had real trouble in the Finnish Elite League.

It took the team 52 days and 12 games to finally earn a three-point win over TPS Turku just a week ago, but even though the team's top lines haven't been producing enough goals to give the team a chance to win in regular time, it has been noticeable that with a little help from the defence, the team's checking lines have given them a chance to win by reducing the goals against.

Most of this is due to the shuffling of the lines that head coach Pekka Tirkkonen has made to wake up the team. SaiPa promoted 20-year-old forward Ville Vainikainen from the juniors and he has been a hail of joy to the team with three excellent games under his belt already.

“Vainikainen came in really well,” said linemate Mikael Kuronen after a 2–1 lost to another CHL quarter-finalist, IFK Helsinki. “It's been really nice to play right beside him, knowing that he gives 100 percent to every shift. He's physically able to play at this level and is not shy at all on the ice. He had a chance to score his first professional goal on a a rebound last week, but eventually with hard work Ville will get his reward.”

SaiPa had problems with their defensive corps during the slump. A defence filled with talent such as Brian Salcido, Johan Larsson and Simo-Pekka Riikola as the backbone has been disappointing. Even though SaiPa have two players among the top 10 in points for defencemen – Salcido in 6th and Riikola 10th – the defence has been blamed for leaving star netminder Jussi Markkanen alone in front of the net too often.

“The principal of the defence has to be guarding your own goal, that's for sure. In the big picture our defence has improved during the season, but we still need to keep the extra players away from our goal,” said Kuronen.

After getting the win from TPS last Tuesday, the last two games against the Espoo Blues and IFK Helsinki have started the same way. SaiPa got off to slow starts and surrendered early goals – three against Espoo – forcing the coaching staff to call a timeout. On the positive side, in both cases SaiPa came back, rallying against Espoo from three goals behind and tying the game against IFK in the third.

“We all knew at that point that we're not playing on our level," Kuronen continued. "Calling the timeout was wise thing from our coaching staff as we weren't ready for the game at all. We eventually got going after a poor start. As the season continues the games will become tougher, so we need to be ready when the puck drops.”

Kärpät Oulu will travel to Lappeenranta for the quarter-finals and are bringing some familiar faces to Kisapuisto with them. SaiPa lost star forward Patrick Davis and defencemen Dan Spang and Ryan Glenn to Kärpät during the off-season. 

It will be interesting to see how the crowd in Lappeenranta will react to Glenn's first visit to Lappeenranta after making controversial comments in the press earlier in the season. Last season, SaiPa faced Kärpät in the league semi-finals, losing the series 4–1. After scoring 30 points in 50 games during the regular season with SaiPa, Glenn failed to record a single point in the playoffs. An interview with newspaper Urheilulehti in September revealed the possible reason as Glenn was quoted saying:

“I knew at that point [during the semi-final series] that I was playing for Kärpät next season. Of course I gave everything for SaiPa during the playoffs, but I tried also not to anger anyone from my future team.”

As SaiPa and IFK played their last game in the Finnish league before the CHL playoffs continue on Tuesday, an interesting rumour started to float last week around both teams. Finnish hockey media website jatkoaika.com reported that both teams are interested in signing former 3rd overall NHL pick Cam Barker. As per club policies, neither team has commented on the rumour.