Peter
Abbandonato
scored 1:24 into overtime to give Jukurit Mikkeli a 2-1 victory over
the Lahti Pelicans and a 4-games-to-1 win in their Liiga playout
series. As a result, Jukurit will again play in the top Finnish
league next season, while the Pelicans will have to defeat the
champion of the second-tier Mestis in a promotion-relegation series
to remain.
It’s
a mighty fall for the Pelicans, who reached the Liiga finals in both
2023 and 2024, falling to mighty Tappara Tampere in five games each
time. This season, however, the team finished 15th out of
16 teams during the regular season and then, after winning the
opening game against Jukurit, lost four in a row against a team that
only won five regulation-time games all season.
“How
is this even possible?” Finnish
journalist Ilari Savonen pondered.
With
just 12 regulation wins in 60 games, Jukurit Mikkeli finished last in
the 16-team Finnish Liiga. The team is now in the midst of a
best-of-seven playout series with the 15th-place Lahti Pelicans, with
the loser facing a relegation series against the winner of the
second-tier Mestis.
The
team has never had big stars – it’s currently led offensively by
diminutive 38-year-old American Ryan Lasch, who has now played in
Europe for over a decade. Other names include Czech
goaltender Patrik Bartošák and
defenseman Michal Jordán, 19-year-old Minnesota
Wild prospect Rasmus Kumplulainen and 18-year-old
defenseman Daniel Nieminen – the latter two
both played in this year’s World Juniors.
Without
a lot of star power, the Pelicans played a solid team game under
coach Tommi Niemelä,
who left last summer to accept the job behind Ilves Tampere’s
bench.
Late
in the season, the Pelicans hired former NHL forward Sami Kapanen to
take over the coaching reigns but he wasn’t able to avoid the
playout series.
“Even
though we won the first game,
we weren’t mentally present,” Kapanen
told MTV Urheilu after the last game on Saturday.
“We didn’t play our own game during the first four games.
Maybe (Friday)
in Mikkeli there were already certain aspects of the
execution, but now we’re back
to playing our own game.”
Apparently,
the travelling Lahti fans in Mikkeli weren’t of the same opinion.
Their frustration was mainly aimed at owner Pasi Nurminen – the
former NHL goaltender who retired in 2005 at age 30 to take over as
owner of his hometown Pelicans team.
“It is absolutely
clear that we did not reach the level that both the team itself and
the entire Pelicans community expected of us,”
Nurminen
told MTV Urheliu. “The series against the Jukurit
was difficult for us, and at no point did it go as we had hoped.”
While
he’s always operated the team on a limited budget, fans and media
speculated that he was having cashflow problems when he released
several players close to the transfer deadline. Nurminen denied
rumors that payroll was ever missed.
“In
this kind of situation, it’s natural that various rumors will
surface,” he said. “However, we can state that the club has
fulfilled its obligations towards players and staff on time.” He
also added that “Bankruptcy is not a current threat. The
(financial) situation has been tight and
continues to be tight, let’s admit it, but everything is under
control.”
Jokerit
Helsinki, a team that features Valtteri Filppula, currently leads the
Mestis final 3-1, with a chance to wrap it up in Game 5 on Monday and
become the Pelicans’ opponent in the promotion-relegation series.
While
recent results don’t seem to back it up, both Kapanen and Nurminen
seem to think the team’s play is improving and are optimistic about
the upcoming series.
“As big a
disappointment as this is, it feels like the dressing room was more
relaxed after the game and more ready to start the next series than
it was last week,” said Kapanen. “We’re
heading in the right direction.”
