SaiPa Lappeenranta completely shut down Tappara Tampere in their own building, and will now take a 2-0 aggregate lead to their own home next week. Read more in Gamecentre.

This is a match-up between two Liiga teams, but despite their respective places in the standings at the moment – Tappara first and SaiPa 11th – they reverted to their CHL Group Stage forms tonight, with the visitors from Lappeenranta winning 2-0. It was a stiflingly solid defensive effort from SaiPa from start to finish, allowing the Finnish champs just 11 shots on Jussi Olkinuora all game. 

“It's quite a nice feeling,” said Olkinuora, who earned the shutout despite the light workload. “It was fun to play and hopefully this was an entertaining game. Our team played well today. We got started well and everybody did their jobs.”

After a scoreless first period, SaiPa got on the board early in the second when Tomi Leivo punched home a loose puck from a scramble just three seconds after their power play had ended. From there, Tappara tried to get back into it, but just couldn't get any sustained offence going. SaiPa's discipline showed in the fact that they only gave Tappara two power plays all game, while they had five chances themselves.

It looked like 1-0 might be the way the game ended, but SaiPa doubled their lead in the last five minutes when Eetu got to his own rebound and tucked it in. Overall, Teemu Lassila had a fine night in the Tappara net with 25 saves, allowing the two rebound goals. 

"I feel irritated because of our game tonight," veteran Tappara defenceman Pekka Saravo said after the game. "We were not as ready to play in the first period as we should´ve been."

Tappara now have their work cut out for themselves, heading into Lappeenranta next Tuesday with a two-goal deficit on aggregate.