Tappara Tampere conceded an early goal but looked very strong the rest of the way in a 6-1 win over the Red Bulls in Salzburg. Tappara’s attack was balanced with six different goal scorers and no player recording more than two points.
Red Bull looked good at the start of the game, gaining some momentum from an early power play and opening the scoring at 4:35 thanks to Ryan Duncan, who took a pass from Brant Harris in the slot and beat Dominik Hrachovina with a lovely backhand deke. However, that was the only shot to beat Tappara’s Czech goalie on the night, with Hrachovina stopping the other 26.
Tappara took control of the game with three goals in under 10 minutes - Jukka Peltola shorthanded, Juhani Jasu at even strength and Jere Karjalainen on the power play. Then when Otto Rauhala made it 4-1 early in the second period, it felt like the two-time reigning Finnish champions had things under control, and indeed they did. They added one more goal in the second period and two in the third to round out the scoring.
We have got a lot of work to do, Tappara is a good team, they play a lot of different ways. So we will look at tonight, hopefully have a good practice tomorrow.Ryan Duncan (Red Bull Salzburg)
"Yes, the team´s performance was really good. I think at the start they were coming up really hard, but then we found a way to break that pressure and we got some goals and our goalie was really good in the beginning."Jukka Peltola (Tappara Tampere)