Arguably the most exciting of Tuesday's games happened in northern Finland, where Karpat Oulu overcame a 2-goal aggregate deficit and won the series on a beautiful last-minute goal by Mika Pyorala. He spoke after the game. 

by Miikka Jarvenpaa

OULU – Down by 2 goals heading into their home half of their eighth-final series against Sparta Prague, Karpat Oulu needed offence, and it was Mika Pyorala who provided the spark that they needed. After a scoreless first period, he set up Arto Laatikainen for a beautiful goal to open the scoring and bring his team to within 1 on aggregate. Then late in the third period, with the series apparently headed toward overtime, Pyorala came through again, this time scoring a beautiful goal by beating the Sparta defence to the outside and cutting in to tuck the puck between Tomas Popperle's pads with 49 seconds on the clock. 

You scored the winning goal and got Karpat through to the quarter-finals of the CHL. How does it feel right now?

“It feels great. It wasn’t easy to start from 2 goals behind. We knew that if we were patient and kept on grinding, we’d come back. The opponent was a bigger team in size and we were playing in a bigger rink than what they have in Prague, so we tried to wear them down with our skating and get scoring chances. In that we were successful.”

You mentioned the bigger rink. In what other ways did this game differ from the first leg?

“Well, Prague came to a road game trying to defend a 2-goal lead for 60 minutes. It was not an easy task and we kinda had nothing to lose. Patience was the keyword. We didn’t over-attack or try to win the game in the first or second period, we just kept on grinding to the end.”

Your goal was the series-winning goal and you played a major role in Arto Laatikainen’s opening goal. Walk us through those plays.

“We noticed that they were trying to defend kinda like 1-on-1 times five. We decided to try some changing places and crossing plays to make room. I was also in a bit of an unusual spot for me at the blue line. Miro (Aaltonen) dropped the puck to me and Laatikainen went for the net and no one checked him. I got the puck to him and his finish was superb.

“The last goal I came on the ice and noticed that there’s only few minutes left to play. Julius Junttila broke the pass near the red line and we got a semi 2-on-1 rush. I think the defenceman saw that Junttila was in a forehand position that there’s a risk for a one-timer. He tried to check that a bit too much and Junttila passed back to me. I managed to charge to the crease and luckily it went between the five-hole.”

You lost in Prague. Then you played and a few other players played in tournaments for the national teams, so you didn’t have a full squad in training. Did it make preparing for this any harder? 

“Maybe a little, but we had a chance to go through the first game yesterday. We checked the things that we had to improve. The national team guys are used to playing a lot and some lucky guys got some rest. We, who were in the national teams, didn’t have to practice yesterday at all so we got the rest that we needed. So those things might affect a bit but all of us are professionals in this team who know how to take advantage from both rest and stress.”

Thank you, congratulations on the victory.

“Thanks.” 

Watch the game highlights, including Pyorala' assisting on the first goal and scoring the last, below.