John McFarlane's hat-trick helped SaiPa Lappeenranta beat Eisbaren Berlin 6-3 and top Group I. Read more in Gamecentre. 

Eisbaren Berlin headed to Finland to face SaiPa knowing that it was still possible for them to win Group I with a regulation win. Having Lulea go out of the competition earlier in the week, neither side had to worry about missing the cut for the Round of 32. In the end, a 6-3 win means that SaiPa finishes first and Eisbaren second.

Things started well for the visitors, who were backed by a good number of vocal fans – Florian Busch put Berlin ahead with under nine minutes played. Still leading going into the second period, the Eisbaren then found themselves on the wrong end of a 10 minute spell of dominance by the home side. John McFarland started the scoring for SaiPa at 24:58 when he tipped home Brett Carson's pass, and less than four minutes later Mikael Kuronen had the final touch on a 2-on-1 counterattack for the Finns to put them ahead. With 35:19 played, McFarland fired through the five-hole of Frans Tuohimaa to cap a wonderful solo skate through the Berlin zone to put SaiPa 3-1 up at the break.

At the beginning of the final period Berlin, who needed a regulation win to take top spot in the group, got themselves back in the game – Kyle Wilson the scorer with just under 15 minutes to play. That hope was short-lived, though, as Eetu Koski's snapshot flew into the net 80 seconds later to re-establish SaiPa's two-goal advantage. Curtis Hamilton added number five for the hosts with 9:10 to play to give them a comfortable lead, however the Berlin club was not out of it yet. Busch tapped home Spencer Machacek pass out in front for his second of the game while shorthanded to bring Die Eisbaren back to within two again.

The game looked to be heading for a 5-3 finish, but SaiPa were determined to have the last laugh – McFarland notching his hat-trick with another fine individual goal, this one with 1:34 remaining to give SaiPa the 6-3 win.

“This was a really great game for this time of the season,” said McFarland, the 24-year-old Canadian starting his first season in Europe. “I'm always happy when I can score so many goals like that, and I'm really happy that I could help my team with those goals. Today it was obviously a good game. I like to score a goals, that’s part of my nature. It feels great that everybody helped each other.” 

“It was huge win for us today,” SaiPa head coach Ari Santanen said of the game that won them the group. “After first period the game seemed a pretty high uphill road for us. Lucky for us, goalie Tuohimaa kept us in the game in the first period and were only one goal behind. We changed our game strategy to the second period and lifted our wingers little bit higher. That’s helped our playing and, secondly, we moved better and win one to one situations. Also, the goals we scored helped us. Esibaren are a strong team. They have big guys which  are strong in contact and move well. We had all the time challenges with that. The third period was smart defending but we gave up that shorthanded goal.”

“Both games were quite similar,” Eisbaren head coach Uwe Krupp answered when asked to compare the two games between the two teams. “The first period was the greater period and we had good pressure on SaiPa and had quality scoring chances, but unfortunately the score was only 1-0. And the second period was the mirror image of the first game, where we had lots of chances and lots of pressure on SaiPa. SaiPa played better too – they scored lots of goals.

“I was happy with the way we played," Krupp continued. "We ended up getting many good chances in the third period and tried to come back. I liked the way we played.”