A cheeky hand signal from a Tappara player – Nothing was left unclear about this

Tappara’s golden helmet Benjamin Rautiainen, who struggled in the playoffs, flashed his familiar intrigue from the regular season again, when the axe-breasts claimed a 3–2 overtime victory in Kouvola.

Rautiainen’s knuckle pass from behind the goal found Joachim Blichfeld, who scored Tappara’s second goal of the night.

Or maybe I should say the third, because a little before that, Kasper Simontaival already put the puck in the net. However, that hit was disallowed when Kristian Tanus hit KooKoo player Eetu Randelin’s stick while skating.

So when Rautiainen finally got the second goal on the scoreboard, he gestured provocatively in the direction of KooKoo’s goal. He pointed to the goal with his hand like a referee showing that a goal had been scored.

– There’s nothing to it. It came from the spine, Rautiainen acknowledged the situation.

Was it somehow related to the earlier goal that was disallowed?

– Maybe it was connected, maybe not.

Tanus is amazed

Tanus was of the opinion that Simontaipale’s goal should not have been disallowed.

– It was the same style as what came in the Ilves series, which was accepted for them at the time. At least I felt that I got a cross stick, which is why I had to take a small step through the toilet, Tanus said.

– However, luck has to be earned, and quite quickly another goal was scored. The game usually fixes it, he continued.

Rautiainen said he felt liberated. After 130 minutes of play, it would have been sad to leave the rink as a loser.

The golden helmet started to catch on as the evening progressed.

– That’s fine. I felt that I could get into the game a little better as I continued. There were a little more substitutions and through that I was able to play more with the puck. I caught the rhythm. It’s nice to play these overtimes, he mused.