Kristian Kuusela is in his first season as captain of Tappara Tampere, which means having to answer for when the team doesn’t have its better moments. One of those was last Tuesday’s 5-1 loss in Brno, which puts the team at a four-goal disadvantage heading into the Round of 16 Return Game in Tampere.
“Of course, it’s a disappointing loss. We let two easy goals in, we didn’t defend as we wanted, and at the other end we had six, seven, eight really good chances but couldn’t score, so that’s pretty much that.”
After 40 minutes, Tappara trailed 3-1 and hoped to at least close the gap in the third period to give themselves a good chance at home. However, two more Kometa goals have made that task more difficult. “Two goals more make it way harder, but as we saw today, we got chances to score, so I think we can get four or five goals at home. We have to believe in ourselves.” He added: “We have good players on our team that can score, and if we get one early, we can feed off that. It seems big, but if we take it one goal at a time, it’s possible.”
"It's not just bad luck, when you get this far, you're always playing good teams"Kristian Kuusela on Tappara's repeated CHL Round of 16 exits
Tappara were strong in the Group Stage, topping Group E by taking 15 of 18 possible points. However, in four previous Champions Hockey League campaigns, the team hit a roadblock in the Round of 16, and they once again face a big challenge if they want to advance to the Quarter-Finals for the first time.
“It’s not just bad luck,” Kuusela feels. “You know, when you get this far in the tournament, you’re always playing against a good team. Like this team here, they’re very good and they played very well. We just didn’t win.”
After playing for Tappara’s U16, U18 and U20 teams, Kuusela broke into Finland’s top league, Liiga, in 2002 with Assat Pori. After a season in Sweden with Modo Ornskoldsvik, he was back in Finland to play for Kärpät Oulu and the Espoo Blues before returning to Tappara in 2013. That’s where he’s been ever since, except for a 52-game KHL stint with Amur Khabarovsk in 2016/17. In his time back with the team, they have made the finals every season, but have only won the Finnish title once.
“I missed the first season,” he said, referring to Tappara’s run of six straight Liiga finals appearances, “but we’ve had a pretty good run. It’s fun to play in big games at that time of year. We’d like to have more championships, but we hope we can win another this year.
This season, though, Tappara is not off to the best of starts. As of the international break, the team were sixth with 30 points in 19 games. “It hasn’t been the way we wanted,” he said of the team’s start, “but a lot of teams are close together and there’s still lots of time left to get things going the right way.”
In the Champions Hockey League, we’ve seen Tappara produce some good young talent, including Henrik Haapala and Patrik Laine. “Yeah, I played with Laine for one year and Haapala for a few,” Kuusela said. “I definitely like to watch them when I can but it’s not always easy live. I watch the highlights though.”
Now that he’s 35 and the captain of a team he’s had such a long association with, is this where he’d like to finish his career? “I don’t know. I think I’ve still got a few more years, so I haven’t really thought about it. But whatever happens, I think I’ll probably stay in Finland.”