Comment HIFK built a stellar team that never finished – and then the season ended

Turku

Helsinki IFK’s puck season ended with a bitter-tasting semi-final loss to TPS.

TPS took the seventh game in their home arena 3-1 and ended the puck spring of the well-known and star-studded IFK.

The situation alone was against HIFK. According to league statistics, the best of seven series has been played 24 times since 2003 and only four times have the away team scratched the win.

TPS is one of the success clubs in league history, but it was only the second time in the seventh game. However, at the time of the greatness of TPS, from the late 1980s to the early 2000s, the four-win requirement was not in place. And if it had been, the top club of yesteryear would not have gotten into those matches very often.

HIFK spent money, time and effort to acquire quality players before the start of the season and games were in full swing. The offensive division of the line-up could well have been eligible for the Lion in one of the EHT tournaments.

Stad’s number one club has often failed, but this season broken by the corona went more wrong than anyone could have imagined.

Let’s take a small pick from the stars of IFK. Jere Innala was the number one star of HPK when he joined the club, and with that status he played. Innala did better than many others. Eetu Koivistoinen was the best player on Luko’s championship team last spring and voted the most valuable in the playoffs.

Otto Paajanen came to IFK along the bypass when playing in Sweden did not go well. He was the captain of HPK’s 2019 championship team. No one could replace Paajanen’s workload, but he was not the translator of the series either.

Olympic winner Iiro Pakarinen got a tag on the back of the Jokers that read HIFK. Teemu Turunen took the same direction from the Jokers who had completed their KHL journey.

There were a huge number of stars in the head coach Ville Peltosella out of time and means to place the blocks in their proper places.

HIFK built a team that never finished – and now it breaks down as often as the season ends. Innala heads to Sweden and many others change the landscape.

To acquire these players, the sports director of HIFK Tobias Salmelainen used energy, but he left the goalkeeper department flimsy.

It is not possible to explain a loss in the semi – finals by: Michael Garteig was injured. Even before that, he wasn’t the undisputed number one or star goalie.

At a young age Niilo in Halose is the stuff to grow into a good goalkeeper, but the first playoffs in his career were too big a piece of cake to swallow at once.

Something about IFK’s goalkeeper situation was that he was only 16 at the end of the season Emil Vinni sat on the bench in second place. Promising boy, but not quite in such big circles – yet.

TPS will continue to the semi-finals, and by no means.