Tappara’s Niko Ojamäki’s hat trick against HIFK was completed only after the match.
Niko Ojamäke (behind) and Waltteri Merelä laughed when the puck bounced into HIFK’s backpack. Mika Kylmäniemi / AOP
In Thursday’s only league match, the reigning champion defeated HIFK with 5–2 goals.
Returnee Niko Ojamäki scored Tappara’s 3–2 winning goal after the middle of the final set with a sharp wrist shot and sealed the final numbers in the last second.
In addition, Ojamäki was marked as the pitcher for the opening goal of the evening, which was born with superiority in the first period, which was announced Walter Merelän to do.
However, the 2+1 balance of world champion-Olympic winner Ojamäki, who won the KHL’s goal crown last season, changed to 3+0 later in the evening.
Points will be checked
– We didn’t have time to check it during the game, but it was checked in the evening after the end of the game, Liiga’s director of competition Arto I. Järväla tells.
The checking process is three-staged: when the situation room has time, it checks and correctly corrects the power points already during the game or after the game, when it basically goes through all the goals of the round. In addition, clubs have the option to request a review.
The point and goal exchanges are an essential part of following the series and the players, so it is important that the performances are marked correctly – even after the game.
In this case, the goal was such an optical illusion that it was no wonder that the judges and also the TV viewers saw the goal scorer wrong at first.
From the perspective of C More’s main camera, the chain of events looked like this:
Ojamäki’s shot from the left B point of the attack zone fails, and the puck slides towards the goal. It changes direction from touch to Merelä’s stick, hits the HIFK pack holding the man at the back post and having his back in the situation Ilari Melartin skates and bounces to the goal.
In reality, no less than the last two touches came from HIFK players. Even before Merelä, HIFK’s second defender Joonas Lyytinen tried to catch the puck that had slipped behind him with a spinning movement and hit it lightly, so Merelä’s attempt to control the puck missed just fine.
The hit was a classic lucky one and accordingly HIFK was very unlucky in the situation, but overall Tapparan can be said to have deserved their victory.