Petri Kontiola has reached brisk point production. Mika Kylmäniemi/AOP
The most interesting game of the day
As the most interesting league match of the evening, I would pick the meeting between Ässie and Ilves at the Isomäki arena in Pori. What makes Ilves interesting is that the team has completely created its skin in the League from what was seen of it in the CHL matches played before the start of the series. In the CHL, Ilves was really weak in opening the game and the team was able to mess up with even modest pressure on the defenders. In the league, that problem has hardly occurred. The change has also been huge in terms of the overpowering game. In the CHL, Ilves’ dominance percentage has so far been the fourth worst in the entire tournament (5.56%), but correspondingly in the League it is quite elite (27.27%).
Even for Ässie, you can see at least a momentary upswing, when the team, after two really weak away matches (0–3 Ilves and 2–7 TPS), in their first home match of the season last time beat JYP handsomely 5–0. The Aces have clearly had more variance in the Liiga than the Ilves. This also marks the meeting of the evening, and the assessment of its power relations. Somewhat worthy of attention in the teams’ first matches of the season has been the open style of play measured by Ässie’s expected goals and, correspondingly, the surprisingly few goals scored in the nature of the matches in the case of Ilves. Behind the 17 goals scored in the Aces’ first three matches, there is a goal waiting for fifteen goals. The 11 goals in Ilves’ matches have been born only by waiting for a good 9 goals. Compared to this Petri Kontiolan the top spot in the league’s point exchange should be appreciated quite a bit. “Konna” has scored 2+3 in three matches and has thus been involved in more than half of Ilves’ goals! On the other hand, the biggest weakness of Ilves at the moment may also come from that lack of solvers.
The match is so exciting that it is already the second meeting between Ässie and Ilves this season. The first one ended in a 3-0 victory for Ilves in the opening round of the league in Tampere (expected goal score 1.8-1.0). In that match, Ilves scored two overtime goals and was clearly the better team in terms of play. As an additional note, I remembered that Ässät did not make much effort to put pressure on Ilves’ defenders to open the game. In tonight’s match, it will be interesting to see if Patapaidat play more actively at home. If Ilves is worth following how Petri Kontiola and Henrik Haapala spin possible patterns of superiority, then you can choose the 19-year-old promise who scored the last two goals in the foursome as the focal point of Ässie Feetu Knicht.
As for the match’s power relations, I have a hunch Veikkaus’ 3.10/3.85/2.10 odds scale is more favorable to the home side, but as a hint, the underdog odds of the Aces are not quite enough.
The most delicious bet search of the match can be found on the side of goal number coefficients. The 1.79 offered for at least two goals for both is exactly a borderline case in my estimate of 56 percent. Here, I base my assessment mainly on the fact that I don’t think Ilves will forever play low-goal matches with his offensively strong material.
Ässät–Ilves starts at 18:30.
The best betting tip of the day
Underdog searches can be made to the League in this round for the matches Pelicans–SaiPa and Tappara–HPK. The Pelicans can be considered somewhat lucky after collecting four points from their opening round matches. The team has lost the expected goals against both Kärppi (1.4-4.3) and KalPa (1.1-1.6). Perhaps the most noteworthy thing here is that in both of their opening games, the Pelicans have not been able to create even a goal and a half equal to the expected goal. Now it also lacks a striker planned for key roles in the lineup Jonas Enlund. When there are also absences at the defensive end, I think the situation opens up slightly better opportunities for SaiPa to win the season opener than Veikkaus estimated. It is worth trying SaiPa with the 3.10 win coefficient of the actual game time.
In the Tappara – HPK match, I will once again use the traditional “in the early season favorites don’t necessarily always shine at their best against clear underdogs” mentality. Although on paper Tappara has a much stronger team than HPK in terms of material, the match at the half-empty Nokia Arena will probably not be easy for them mentally. HPK has improved and tightened up its playing a lot after the 1-4 loss to HIFK in the opening round. Veikkaus has put Tappara in a too clear favorite position here. Possible searches are HPK more than 1.5 goals with a coefficient of 1.85, both teams to score at least two goals with a coefficient of 2.22 and HPK +1.5 with a coefficient of 1.84. Of these, I pick HPK over 1.5 goals as the best. All league matches start at 18:30 today.
Games of the day:-
Total balance of the day’s games for the year: 42/71/109%
Every day Iltalehti chooses the most interesting game of the day and the best game destination of the day. You can always find them in the Betting and Ravit section.