In Ilves’s booth, they talked about stomach problems in very harsh words.
Tommi Niemelä got a lot to think about. Pasi Suokko, AOP
Tappara’s 5-1 defeat of Ilves meant that a long meeting was held in the yellow-green locker room of the Nokia Arena after the match.
The door of the booth remained closed for about a quarter of an hour, which is a rare long time. There was a reason, because Ilves played a miserable match.
Ilves head coach Tommi Niemelä gave comments to the media after the match with a hoarse voice. So had Niemelä let his players down?
– Sometimes the feedback is harsher and sometimes more calm. After the game, there was nothing left, but after the opening set, it was a little bit worse.
Ilves, who played loosely, was completely overwhelmed by Tappara in the opening set. The scores were 0–3 at the first break.
– Surely the preparation went wrong when such a batch came. We were in no way playing the kind of hockey we wanted to play.
– Tappara played well on the puck, but yes, it was our weakness to a large extent. You can’t win a game with that kind of attack, Niemelä snorted.
According to Niemelä, before this match Ilves had played the offensive game so well that the opponent had not gained much puck control. On Thursday, Tappara set the pace with the puck, especially in the opening set.
– If we want to forcefully give them that many pucks, then yes, there is so much skill there that they will score goals.
– You have to look really carefully, why the performances in the middle area were like that, Niemelä said.
Goalkeeper mystery
Ilves’ goalkeeper roulette has been the talk of the town this spring. He played on goal on Thursday Mantas Armaliswhose prevention percentage has been well below 90.
However, Niemelä has not publicly stated the reasons why the goalkeeper changes so often. The same line continued on Thursday.
– I have nothing to say about it. Mantas blocked many amazing chances in the opening set.
The question by Dominik Pavlát Niemelä avoided the health situation.
– We have two great goalkeepers.
Tampere’s semi-final series continues on Saturday.