Right now Karpat Oulu are in the midst of their last couple of Liiga games before Tuesday's Champions Hockey League Final against Frolunda Gothenburg. After Thursday night's 1–0 home-ice win over SaiPa Lappeenranta, centre Mika Niemi and defenceman Lasse Kukkonen spoke about the game and the upcoming Final.
by Miikka Jarvenpaa
OULU – In their last home game before the Champions Hockey League Final, Karpat Oulu hosted SaiPa Lappeenranta. Karpat took home three points thanks to a single goal by Mika Niemi.
Both teams had some scoring chances but both goalkeepers were in great form. Karpat's defence and penalty-killing units threw in stellar performances to secure the crease and seal a close 1–0 victory for the home team. Sami Rajaniemi, a goalie on loan from Pelicans Lahti who is not eglible for the CHL Final, made 31 saves for the shutout.
Niemi has scored points evenly throughout the season. He's Karat's top scorer in Liiga play with 33 points (13 + 20) in 43 games. In the CHL he has 4 points (2 + 2) in 12 games. On Thursday night the centre scored the game-winning goal in the second period on a power play on a feed from Julius Junttila, the team's Cramo Top Scorer in the CHL.
"SaiPa messed up their line change and I and Junttila made it to 2-on-0 breakaway. He passed to me for an open net. It was relatively easy to score from that," Niemi described.
Karpat will play KalPa in Kuopio on Saturday. Understandably, Niemi said that at the moment Karpat are focusing 100% on the Liiga games before the upcoming Final.
"We haven't given much thought to the Final yet since we have a Liiga match on Saturday. We haven't watched any videos about the opponent or any of that yet. The time for those things are propably on Monday. The CHL Final has not affected our daily routines yet. We'll start focusing on that on Monday."
The Karpat defence played a perfect game, allowing no goals against. Karpat captain Lasse Kukkonen played the game with his usual intensity, taking and giving hits in front of the net and both ends of the ice.
"We got three points, that was what we were after, obviously. Good defending and goalkeeping tonight," Kukkonen described. "Overall good patience, commitment and devotion. We had to kill some penalties too and we were great on those as well."
Kukkonen was also the captain last year when Karpat lost to Frolunda in the CHL Semi-Finals. He also denied having any thoughts yet about the big game on Tuesday.
"It hasn't affected me yet. The Liiga schedule is so busy at the moment which is good, actually. Tomorrow we'll prepare for the Saturday's game and travel to Kuopio. It's good actually to not have time to look too far in the future. We go day by day and the Final will take place eventually. We still have a tough game on Saturday against a hungry home team."
Kukkonen and Karpat are keen to take on the last year's CHL runners-up Frolunda Gothenburg, who eliminated Karpat in overtime in Oulu in a game Karpat general manager Harri Aho earlier described as "one of the greatest hockey games played in Finland last year." This year, Karpat hope to be more successful at home.
"We got close last year but they were better," Kukonen continued. "Of course we want to beat them. They're a really good team – even better than last year. Let's hope that we can use home ice to our advantage and come out on top. It's a good challenge for us."