The head coach of Kärpät delivered a blunt message after the loss: "Completely childish"

Kärpät suffered a 1-2 loss to Ilves in their home arena on Saturday night.

The match progressed without goals until the end of the second period. Then Ilves scored twice in under a minute through Sebastian Soini and Radek Kucerik. Kärpät’s goal was scored in the final period on a power play by Samuel Jonsson.

Kärpät’s head coach Petri Karjalainen reviewed the match in a press conference. He saw some good in his team’s performance but followed it up with direct words about their play.

– We had a good first period. In the second period, Ilves was good, but we were really poor. About five turnovers in the neutral zone, the attacking play… I don’t know if undisciplined is the right word. Impatient, completely childish the offensive play, through which the momentum was entirely with the opponent. I can’t say we lost because of that, but it certainly influenced the game a lot.

– We raised our game in the third period and fought hard. We got one goal and created a few chances, but the opponent was better today. We have a huge opportunity to look in the mirror. You can’t play that stupidly against a quality team, Karjalainen states.

Kärpät’s season has been overall poor. The team is in 15th place, and the playoff spot is five points away. They have only 12 regular-season games left.

– The sand is running out of the hourglass really quickly. We need to be able to improve our weak moments significantly and endure for 60 minutes. We didn’t manage that today; next week we’ll go for it again, Karjalainen concludes.

Next week, Kärpät will face KalPa, Karjalainen’s former team, at home twice.

TPS star received a massive ban for biting – TS: Denies the accusations

League | 26.10.2026 18:43