Kometa Brno took a solid step towards advancing to the Quarter-Finals for the second consecutive year by beating Tappara Tampere 5-1 on home ice in the first leg of their Round of 16 series, giving the two-time defending Czech champs a four-goal lead to take with them to Finland in two weeks’ time.

Buoyed by their boisterous home fans, Kometa came out of the gate quickly, scoring twice before Tappara even registered a shot on goal. First it was Leoš Čermák digging hard to put in a rebound at 7:40, and then Karel Plašek’s wrister went through the legs of a Tappara defenceman and fooled Christian Heljanko to make it 2-0. Tappara came back with a bit of a push late in the period, but Karel Vejmelka made some big saves to keep his team two goals up.

Tappara put on more pressure on an early second-period powerplay, but whatever momentum was gained at that point was stifled when Peter Mueller stepped out of the penalty box, took a breakaway pass and scored to make it 3-0. Mueller would have a couple more big chances in the period, getting another breakaway on his next shift but Heljanko stopped him, and then in the last minute of the period, he hit the goalpost.

Sami Moilanen’s slapper from the point through traffic got Tappara on the board in the 25th minute, and the game seemed within reach for them until the third period, when goals by Petr Holík and Čermák, with his second of the game, broke it open. Tappara will now need a huge effort on home ice in the return leg to avoid going out in the Round of 16 yet again.