Tampere’s fourth local match of the season was played on Friday. Tappara–Ilves 3–4.
Swedish twist. Ilves’ Filip Westerlund (left) and Tappara’s Jonathan Davidsson fought on Friday in the Nokia Arena. The match was the first Manse local in their careers for both. PDO
Friday night, Tampere’s local hockey game and a full hall of 12,700 spectators.
The framework was in order when Tappara and Ilves collided in the fourth local of the season.
After the colorful stages, the home team Tappara was the first to score 3–4 (0–1, 2–3, 1–0).
The opening set of the match was even and accurate. Tapparan Valtteri Kemläinen the club slipped Ilves Henrik Haapalan between the legs, the attacker fell and the defender left the fight to the ice shelf. Lynx Tommi Tikka won the offensive head start and soon after Balázs Sebők shot the tassel ears to the lead. The goal was the Hungarian’s third of the season. The centre, who is rapidly getting playing time, had gone scoreless in the previous eight matches.
Especially the first ten minutes of the second period were like a different event compared to the first 20 minutes. When 27:58 had been played on the clock, the score was 4–2 for Ilves.
Eetu Päkkilä knocked down Ilves’s second and Jani Nymanin a fiery whip took the yellow shirts to a three-goal lead.
In the last round, he returned from a sick leave of about two and a half months Walter Merelä brought the ax chests within two goals in 23:29.
The orange pants created a tough regional pressure on the head of Ilves until the middle of the attack Joona Ikonen ran through and scored 4–1 for Ilves. The hit was the winger’s twentieth of the season.
Niko Ojamäki a heavy score with superiority turned the situation into 2–4 in 27:58.
The third set was, in a way, a return to the starting square: precise and even. Tappara was allowed to try narrowing twice with a two-minute advantage. Without success.
Former head coach of Tappara Jukka Rautakorpi cultivates the term ohhoh paint. Such was the narrowing of the axe-breasts 3–4 in time 56.16: Kemiläinen slipped the puck towards the Ilves goal Marcus Davidson missed the bat.
This was the last match, so Ilves’ third local win of the season in four matches.
This season’s previous Tampere locals have gone like this:
23/09/2022: Ilves–Tappara 3–0
7 October 2022: Tappara–Ilves 1–4
9 December 2022: Ilves–Tappara 3–5
Ilves has dominated the Tampere locals for the last three seasons: last season the series points went to Ilves 13–5, the previous season 12–3 and in the 2019–20 season 12–6. Before this, Tappara was crushing, as Ilves’ previous dominance was from the 2009–10 season.