Ice hockey | Tappara’s Niko Ojamäki was HIFK’s nightmare again

HIFK–Tappara 0–4

Helsinki IFK’s budding winning streak in the hockey league was interrupted on Friday against Tampere Tappara. IFK lost to Tappara 0–4 and continues in ninth place.

IFK has now lost to kirvesrinni three times in a row. The previous victory in mutual meetings is from mid-January.

“Clearly an up-and-down game from us. In the first period, we were a bit sleepy, and in that we gave the guy the places where the game could have gone in the other direction as well”, Tappara’s goalkeeper Christian Heljanko said in an interview with C More.

“It’s a good thing that we were able to open the taps for that, and it’s great that ‘Ojis’ has started hitting with such an average of a couple of goals,” added Heljanko, who saved his first clean sheet of the season To Niko Ojamäki referring to.

Ojamäki once again became Tappara’s solver. He scored the first two goals of the night and assisted on the fourth goal.

The opening goal, approved after video inspection and born in the middle of a rough traffic jam, bounced in though Kristian Vesalainen from the leg. Ojamäki scored his second hit, after a wonderful pattern, with superior power from the b-point straight to the golden helmet Jori Lehterän input.

27-year-old Ojamäki has been IFK’s nightmare this season, as he scored a hat-trick in the previous match. This season, the winger, who has collected 8+8=16 points, has received a good third of his surfaces (5+1=6) just against IFK.

Ojamäki has now scored two goals in two consecutive matches.

In the final Tappara punished IFK twice, 19 seconds apart. Captain Otto Rauhala first fired a nice wrist shot from the b-point to the front upper corner and immediately behind Petteri Puhakka passed by Roope Taponen – again from a direct attack from the front corner.

IFK had to play without their Swedish defender on Friday Johan Motinwho is suspended for no less than nine matches for a tackle on the head.

Of the sentence, five games come from foul play and four games from previous disciplinary history. The league has ruled that a tackle to the head will result in a suspension of at least five games. Motin will be fit to play on January 7, when IFK meets KalPa.

Absences from the defense forced IFK to gamble from Iiro Pakari as a defender. Downstairs, we also saw our own junior who made his league debut Oliver Holttinen.

IFK continues its matches on Saturday as a guest of Vaasan Sport.