Pekka Virta took into account the effect of Jori Lehterä’s absence on the team’s performance.
Jori Lehterä was missing from the lineup, and Tappara lost. Jaakko Stenroos / AOP
KalPa, which continues in fourth place, is, along with Pelicans, the most positive surprise of the league season.
A handsome 3–0 home win over CHL champion Tappara lifted KalPa to the top of the 15-match standings, so no team can count it as a favorite opponent in the playoffs.
For Tappara, the loss was only the second in the last nine matches. Iltalehti’s ice hockey expert Pekka Virta would not attribute the result to poor preparation.
– Tappara came by plane and was well prepared, and the game started smoothly, Virta says.
KalPa’s preparation also looked successful in the eyes of an experienced coach.
– I have to remember that KalPa had two losses in games that were budgeted for KalPa to win.
The Kuopio team, who had been playing well for a long time, stumbled in Jyväskylä on Friday with 1-4 goals and bowed to TPS 3-4 at home on Saturday after the winning goal race.
– We always go into games with some kind of internal mindset. I’m talking about people’s subconscious mind: people budget things, how they should go. Then it often happens that the games that are designed to win are actually difficult, says Virta.
The three-point home win over Tappara was KalPa’s first in four and a half years, so the full point pot came as if against expectations and as compensation after the setbacks.
– This game could also have gone in a different direction, Virta reminds Walter Merelän from the tolppakud that shot right to the beginning.
Then the captain, who was sidelined for two losing games and now back in the lineup, stepped into the spotlight Tuomas Kiiskinen.
– He came in and did a feat. In the final games, you don’t even realize how big a thing he did, Virta says, referring to Kiiskinen’s 1+1 performance in the opening set.
– First, a goal assist with a great individual performance plus then the 2–0 goal.
The 36-year-old Kiiskinen, who played for a long time in Sweden, won two SHL championships in Växjö (2015 and -18).
– He is a great legend in Växjö, which is not quite understood in Finland. In Kuopio, the value of his entry and essence is understood again.
Virta also brings out the 3–0 goal from a slyly small angle with a two-man superiority shot Jaakko Rissanen.
– The last time KalPa played in the finals, he was the leading number one center.
Virta himself coached that team in the spring of 2017.
– Since then, Rissanen has been searching for his place until he returned home. Now he set his league career point record (16+34=50) with an absolutely wonderful performance.
– Experienced Kiiskinen and Rissanen show KalPa’s young team forward, and the team smells a lot of what it was when it went to the finals.
The meaning of the grove
Correspondingly, Virta takes into account Tappara’s best scorer and the league’s second-highest scorer Jori Lehterän absence.
When Lehterä was last sidelined a week ago for the KooKoo match, Tappara collapsed to a 0-4 home loss. After that, he played in away wins against TPS (3–2) and Jukurei (4–3), scoring two goals in the latter.
– Is Lehterä’s importance as the leader of that team really that big in the end, Virta ponders and mentions that many Tappara players were on their nerves – which was also visible in the ice goals (KalPa 4×2, Tappara 9×2 minutes).
– Lehterä is known for keeping a really good atmosphere. He’s a humorist, always in a good mood and nice to everyone, and of course he always takes care of his playful side as well, Virta smokes.
– In such situations, when the game does not go as Tappara assumed, his importance in the booth can be quite big.
However, Virta sees that there is nothing wrong with Tappara, who continues as second in the series.
– This game came to them as a good stop in the midst of all the excitement of victory. And Lehterä is certainly not the only leader there, there is You ask and Blacksmiths.
Tappara also informed the captain who had been sidelined for a long time Otto Rauhalan to return to the lineup this week.