Sami Aittokallio recorded his 6th career CHL shutout as Karpat Oulu won their second straight game, 2-0 over the Krefeld Pinguine. Read more in Gamecentre. 

The Krefeld Pinguine and Karpat Oulu played an even-paced, tight-checking game with visiting Karpat holding a very slight 26-25 edge in shots. They got one goal from Tuomas Vartiainen in the last minute of the first period and a second from Mikael Ruohomaa halfway through the middle frame on a one-timer from the slot and that's all they needed.

"We skated well today,"said Ruohomaa. "If we want to win we need to skate, and that’s what we did today. The rink in Krefeld is smaller (than the one at Ostrava) and their guys are pretty big, so there was less room in the offensive zone. The Penguins did not play as well as us 5-on-5. If their five guys play together they are a really strong team.”

Other than those two blasts, Danish goalie Patrik Galbraith stopped the other 24 shots. However, at the other end, Sami Aittokallio stopped all 25 shots he faced to record his sixth CHL shutout – including the five he recorded in 2015-16. That means that Karpat took the maximum six points from their away games at Vitkovice and Krefeld, and now face the same two teams in northern Finland.

Krefeld forward Mark Mancari said: “I don’t think we had a really good first period. As the game went on we had a number of good chances. If we had capitalized on some of them it would have been a different game. The difference was that they scored when they got their chances and we didn’t.”

Krefeld coach Franz Fritzmeier added: "It was a very good game by both teams. We started strong and had very good chances by Marcel Mueller and during the 5-on-4 and 5-on-3 situations that you just have to take advantage of in a game against one of the best European teams. Our defensive play was good, but Karpat did exploit two of their chances whereas we didn’t, which is unfortunate.”