From the Finnish teams, both Ilves and Pelicans go to their second CHL matches of the evening as chasers.
Will the Pelicans celebrate Tuesday night at Vitkovic’s expense? Tomi Natri / All Over Press
The most interesting game of the day
The Finnish teams Ilves and Pelicans have a tough Savotta in front of them today, if they intend to reach the second round of the playoffs in the CHL.
Ilves lost a week ago at home to HC Dynamo Pardubice 1–3. The Pelicans, who were condemned to lose their home match to Vitkovice 0-3 after being betrayed by the ice in Lahti a week ago, have to go into tonight’s match from an even weaker position.
Let’s continue with total goals, so today Ilves should score three more goals than Pardubice and Pelicans need a four-goal victory over Vitkovice.
With wins of two and three goals, the teams would qualify for the next match today.
In their opening game, Ilves was not in the bottom of the Czech series against the superior top team Pardubice in any way (shots for Ilves 59–51 and expected goal 2.0–1.9). In that match, sharpness in the goal posts played a decisive role.
In the league, Ilves’ style of play has so far worked significantly better in away games than in home games (15 points from home and 31 points from away), so coming from behind by two goals to equalize and pass is not completely utopia against a team of roughly the same level. However, based on these starting points, Pardubice is about 80% favorite to continue from this pair to the quarterfinals.
As far as Pelicans and Vitkovice are concerned, the power relations at the moment are somewhat obscured, and the Lahti players should not be counted out of the competition just yet. In the regular season, Pelicans beat Vitkovice 4–0 at home.
It is also worth noting in Vitkovice that the team has not really got their game working at any point during the season. In the Czech series, Vitkovice is third last after winning only 5 of its 18 matches of the season. Of its seven previous series games, Vitkovice has won only one – and that too in a sweaty 3-2 defeat of series jumbo Mlada Boleslav.
In the evening’s match, the people of Lahti will be favored by the fact that the team itself will include a super important striker in its playing lineup Aatu Jämsenin.
Accordingly, Vitkovice is missing several key players. Among other things, the team’s two most effective defenders Stuart Percy and Willie Raskob suffer injuries. Last week, Vitkovice had to strengthen its attack with JoKP’s attacker With Jonas Peterek.
Pardubice–Ilves starts at 18:30 and Vitkovice–Pelicans at 19:00.
The best betting tip of the day
In terms of betting, the match between Vitkovic and Pelicans is more interesting.
Vitkovic’s weak form and injuries make it vulnerable. In addition, the Pelicans still have a lot of unseen/unused potential this season, at least in principle. In reality, the team may perform better than seen so far.
These, together with the mental starting points of the match (Pelicans’ almost hopeless task/just winnable), now make the Pelicans the favorite to win the match in my opinion. In the odds, the people of Lahti are placed in the underdog position, so when betting on the winner, Pelicans is the preferred option.
Game-wise, the best betting choice might be Pelicans winning by more than two goals with a coefficient of 4.70, because with wins by less than three goals, it does nothing after the 0-3 loss in the opening game.
Also, I now consider the usual 2.42 regular time multiplier for the Pelicans to be too big.
The match also has the potential to score a lot of goals, even if the home team lacks some power due to injuries. The starting setup of the match (the Pelicans have three goals to chase) will probably open the game early on, with the Pelicans having to overattack. The 1.80 offered for more than 5.5 goals is very likely to be at least a meager odds.
Games of the day:
Vitkovice–Pelicans 2 (odds 2.42)
Vitkovice–Pelicans over 5.5 goals (odds 1.80)
The total balance of the day’s games for the year: 125/219/100%
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.