Nicholas Baptiste’s second goal of the game was the OT winner, giving Tappara Tampere a tougher-than-expected 2-1 victory over the Aalborg Pirates, who thrilled their home fans for over 64 minutes and got a rousing ovation at the end. Aalborg actually outshot Tappara 30-23 in the game, with both goaltenders George Sørensen and CHL MVP Christian Heljanko in peak performance.

The shots favoured Tappara 9-5 in a scoreless first period, although Aalborg got the period’s only powerplay and did generate a couple of nice chances.

Tappara exploded out of the gate in the second period, however, generating several great chances and Baptiste scoring the game’s opening goal at 21:19 off the rush, with the former NHLer one-timing a pass from Anton Levtchi. Twenty seconds later, Tappara went to the powerplay for the first time with a chance to really take over the game. Sørensen and the Aalborg PK came up big, however, and that seemed to swing momentum to the home team’s favour.

The Pirates were pressing and forced a turnover in the Tappara zone in the 33rd minute that led to the equalising goal – Nikolai Nielsen feeding Calder Brooks, with Heljanko having little chance.

Just as they did in the second period, Tappara came out strong again but Sørensen weathered the storm and Aalborg once again pushed back. With under seven minutes to play, a turnover at the Tappara blueline gave Thomas Spelling a glorious chance to give the Pirates the lead on a partial breakaway but Heljenko made his biggest stop of the game. With under four minutes to play, Carter Camper hit the crossbar on a Tappara push.

Overtime went back and forth, with both teams having glorious chances. With about a minute to go in the extra period, Heljanko made a shoulder save and the puck rolled out to the neutral zone, where Baptiste picked it up, made a move to beat a defender just inside the attacking blueline and fired a shot that Sørensen got a piece of, but dribbled across the goal line.