Kärpät Oulu and SaiPa Lappeenranta, who battled against each other in the Champions Hockey League quarter-finals, met again in the Liiga quarters. Once again it was Kärpät winning, to earn a spot in the semi-finals. With that result, Lukko Rauma and the Espoo Blues qualify for the CHL. 

by Pekka Mankila

OULU – Joonas Donskoi and Joonas Kemppainen, who were Kärpät Oulu's top forwards in the CHL, are also playing key roles in the Liiga playoffs. Donskoi had seven points, including two goals, in the five-game quarter-final series with SaiPa Lappenranta. Both goals came late in game four, allowing Kärpät a 3–1 lead in the series. Kemppainen, who is likely to play in the NHL next season, was on fire against SaiPa, playing a strong all-around game and constantly feeding linemates Donskoi and Julius Junttila with great passes. 

SaiPa Lappeenranta got into the quarters after beating Ässät Pori in the best-of-three qualification round, which is often called the “pity playoffs” in Finland. SaiPa finished the series in two games with forward Chad Rau scoring the winning goal in overtime.  

Against Kärpät, underdog SaiPa played hard in the two games in front of their ecstatic home crowd, which gave the team a great boost. They won game two in Lappeenranta 5–3 – an extremely heated game that ended with big line brawl where six players were given game misconduct penalties. A total of 174 penalty minutes was racked up. 

SaiPa won the game by scoring three times in the first 10 minutes. Kärpät head coach Lauri Marjamäki reacted by pulling goaltender Tomi Karhunen, who played seven CHL games with a .908 save percentage, and replaced him with Iiro Tarkki. Tarkki was given the chance to play after Karhunen had shouldered the brunt of the workload over the past couple of months and Tarkki really grabbed the chance with both hands. 

Goalie Tarkki also played a key role when Kärpät turned the series in its favor. Tarkki took over as number-one goalie, stopping pucks with .952 save percentage. He got a shutout win in game three at home and then made 39 saves in a 5–2 game four win in Lappeenranta. 

Veteran SaiPa goalie Jussi Markkanen injured himself in the “pity playoffs” which gave Italian Andreas Bernard a chance at glory. Bernard played four games against Kärpät with a save percantage of .895. Markkanen but after giving up five goals was replaced by Bernard for game five, which was won by Kärpät 5–1.

Forward David McIntyre, who scored eight points in CHL, was SaiPa's top scorer in the series with five points. This result means that SaiPa will not participate in the 2015–16 CHL season. Nevertheless, head coach Pekka Tirkkonen was still satisfied with the season. 

“We finished the CHL in the top eight, losing to Kärpät at quarters,” Tirkkonen said after his team's last game of the season. “It was great achievement by us and we were glad to be able to participate in the competition. We also dropped Ässät in the qualification round and we got to the quarter-finals. There are plenty of teams fighting for these spots and this is definitely not something you get to see in Lappeenranta every year.” 

With SaiPa eliminated, the two CHL B-Licenses from the Finnish Liiga go to Lukko Rauma and the Espoo Blues. Espoo were also eliminated in the Liiga quarter-finals, being swept by JYP Jyväskylä, but finished higher than SaiPa in the regular season. Lukko, who like SaiPa advanced to the CHL quarters, where they were eliminated by eventual champions Lulea Hockey, currently lead their Liiga series 3–2 over KalPa Kuopio. Even if they lose the series, they qualify for the CHL by finishing third place in the regular season.