It was mission accomplished for Tappara Tampere on Tuesday night in Finland. Heading into action with an insurmountable lead atop Group E, it was business as usual as they disposed of Djurgården Stockholm with a 5-1 win. This casts an anxious shadow on Djurgården’s Champions Hockey League campaign as they will have to wait and see if Třinec can walk into Norway and steal a win against Storhamar to save Djurgården’s CHL season.

Tappara turned in a good team performance against a torrent of offence from the visitors. Outshot by a large margin, Tappara held strong as netminder Christian Heljanko made 28 saves for the win. His counterpart at the other end of the rink, Robin Jensen, made just 15 saves to take a potentially crushing loss.

Fälth Elias opened the scoring for Tappara at 4:25 of the first period on a shot from the point through traffic that beat the screened goalie. The shaky play from Jensen would be the Achilles heel for a Djurgården side that needed a better performance against one of Finland’s best teams. Anton Levtchi added to the lead just 4 minutes later and they carried it into the second period.

Djurgården Stockholm showed moments of tenacity, and sustained pressure in this match but the closest they got was 2-1 when Emil Bemström deposited a sweet pass from Olle Alsing into the back of an open net. Tappara would score three unanswered goals to close out the game and push the Swedish side to the brink. Depending on the result of Storhamar’s match against Třinec, Djurgården’s CHL campaign could be over or they may just scrape through by the skin of their teeth.