The LHC is relaunching! In the den of the Bears of Bern, the Lions won 2-3 after extra time.
Almost Bernese week for Lausanne HC. The Lions traveled to Bern this Wednesday evening before hosting the Bears at the Vaudoise Aréna on Friday. Meetings which, as usual, promised to be very eventful. Especially since the LHC has finally found Antti Suomela and Théo Rochette in the lineup.
And after five minutes of nothing more, there was finally one. While Lausanne played in numerical superiority, Ahti Oksanen fought in the pads of the Bernese goalkeeper. The puck, in a little confusion, ended up in the back of the net. But the Bears camp requested a coach challenge and the goal was ultimately canceled due to an obstruction on the goalkeeper.
Four against five, Bern then tried to put pressure. To which the Lions responded with a second goal, just after the end of the penalty. A shot from Michael Raffl which went straight (9th, assist: Janne Kuokkanen).
The Bernese did not let themselves be taken down and Kevin Pasche had to be solid in front of his cage. And then, there was this post by Romain Loeffel. Well, that’s what we thought for about a minute when the game didn’t stop. Until the Bears equalized and the referees went to the video to review the action of the Bernese number 58. What we thought was a shot on the post was in fact a goal (19th). The puck actually hit the right post, but by going 90 degrees to the left, it made a small detour to clear the goal line. The time was therefore reduced to 1min10.
Finland, le retour
The second period was a little more messy. It was Bern who found a way to get out of trouble to regain the advantage. The shot is from Dominik Kahun a little further forward than the blue line. Benjamin Bourgo, in the trajectory, slightly deflected the heel puck to make him finish his race behind Kevin Pasche (24th, assists: Victor Ejdsell and Louis Füllemann).
Lausanne continued to fight. Like this action, mid-match, where the Lions delivered three strikes in a few seconds on the goalkeeper who blocked everything before blocking the puck.
-26 seconds from the siren, Antti Suomela perfected her come-back by bringing his team back into the match. Right in front of the goal, the Lausanne Top Scorer was able to deflect Oksanen’s shot (40th).
Finland, encore!
The two teams were unable to decide between themselves in the third period. It’s not the Bernese’s fault for taking advantage of two minutes in numerical superiority. And to have offered a duel between Waltteri Merelä and Kevin Pasche in which the Lausanne goalkeeper said no. Ejdsell benefited from the last dangerous action of regulation time with a powerful shot that bounced off Pasche and ended up in the air.
In overtime, the Lion goalkeeper stopped his opponents’ first attack. As well as all the other Bernese offensives. Lausanne, for its part, had difficulty moving towards the goal. It only took one chance, at the very end of overtime. The man for the job was once again Antti Suomela. Abandoned in front of the Bernese goalkeeper, he hardly had to make any effort to deflect, once again, Oksanen’s shot in the right direction (65th). Did the Finnish forward expect to make such a return to the ice after missing three games due to injury?
Geoff Ward is delighted with this performance. “He’s a very good hockey player. He is smart, he finds the spaces, analyzes the LHC coach. Ahti Oksanen finds it twice, and he finds the small spaces. And that’s all I need. Three centimeters in half a second, and it’s in the net. He leads a lot of the offense so it’s nice to see him back.”
Lausanne will meet Berne on Friday already, at the Vaudoise Aréna. A match that delights the Top Scorer. “It’s nice to play back-to-backs. There are perhaps some rivalries, one-on-one battles here and there, smiles Antti Suomela. I’m a big fan of these kinds of matches, it’s always fun.”
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