HIFK was allowed to leave their home arena in the middle of a huge whistling concert, when the losing streak stretched to four matches and the ranking in the League dropped to second last.
Ville Peltonen’s pressure is growing. Matti Raivio / AOP
– The reactions of our home crowd were fully deserved, HIFK’s head coach Ville Peltonen conceded directly after KalPa took the points with a 3–0 away win.
– We weren’t as persistent as in all the other games here.
HIFK hasn’t won a single away game yet, and now the streak of four home wins, which was a kind of consolation, was broken.
HIFK has already gone more than seven and a half sets without scoring a goal.
– KalPa discouraged us. We are suffering from the kind of slump that can be seen on the scoreboard, Peltonen said without explaining.
– There is one remedy for that: we need to find even more passers and pucks in the goal. That purposeful direction is missing from our superiority game.
Let’s take a shower
KalP’s Colby Sissons’ ugly tackle has hit HIFK’s Kasper Halttus on the head. Matti Raivio / AOP
KalPa’s excellent guest performance remained the downside by Colby Sissons an outrageous tackle aimed at the head, the victim of which was HIFK’s 17-year-old talent Kasper Halttunen.
The Canadian pack deservedly received a shower sentence, but before that he had to answer for his actions in a meeting organized by HIFK.
– I saw the situation, and at that point (Intake) Paajanen(Punch) Kotkansalo and our other players on the field reacted correctly and defended our player, Peltonen said and believed that the League’s discipline would do its job.
When no other referees were whistled for the situation, HIFK had five minutes to try to improve their league’s worst yv percentage (5.13).
It didn’t work, so the goals of HIFK’s over 77 minutes of the season are laughable or pathetic 2-1, depending on the point of view.
With an underpowered goal, HIFK was inoculated by KalPa, when Saku Salmela scored the visitors’ second goal in the second set.
Before that Aleksi Klemetti had opened the taps for the evening, and at the end of the final set Aapeli Räsänen embellished the away victory with his lucky 3–0 hit, which was born as a model for HIFK with superiority.
Too much straightening
– Such difficulties belong to sports, Peltonen stated before continuing to detail the problems.
It was easy to see that the man was seething inside, but his speech remained calm.
– Good defense is our strength and identity, but that wasn’t quite there today either. It is unforgivable.
– A few players started looking for too many shortcuts, and we will intervene immediately, both by the coaching staff and the leading players of the team. That’s the kind of thing that doesn’t work for us.
– Let’s sharpen the attitude, Peltonen, who himself is under pressure, said emphatically.
Next, Ilves
On Friday, there will be a big drama at Nordis, when the crisis-hit HIFK receives its new head coach Antti Pennanen led by Ilves, who lost five times in a row and slipped from the top spot in the table to seventh.
– Yes, the first thing for us is to look in the mirror. Face washing starts already tomorrow morning, Peltonen said, referring to the team’s training.