Hello hockey fans.
It's been a busy month since my last diary. The Liiga final standings and playoff matchups weren't decided until the very last night of the regular season. We clinched our playoff spot with a 4-2 win over HPK by scoring the game-winning goal with 16 seconds left and adding an empty-net goal.
That put us in ninth place, but just two points out of sixth. The final standings were so close that going into our final games, no one from fifth to 11th knew where they would end up, so it was an exciting end to the regular season.
The playoffs started March 24 and we played KooKoo in the first round. Normally the first round is a best-of-3 series, but this year Liiga decided that if the series was tied after the first two games, teams would play sudden-death overtime immediately after Game 2 to decide the series instead of playing a third game. That's what ended up happening.
KooKoo won 2-1 in Game 1, and we won 3-2 in Game 2. In overtime we had a lot of great chances but weren't able to score. With about five minutes left in the second OT, KooKoo scored to win the series.
Losing is always hard, but even harder when it means your season is over. I really felt our team had the potential to go a long way in the playoffs, and the way the series went I thought we definitely played well enough to win both games and the overtime and could still be playing. So it's really tough to accept that we aren't. However, KooKoo also is playing well and won their second-round best-of-7 series against Jukurit on Wednesday night, so you have to give them credit.
Looking back on the Liiga season, if I'm thinking only about results, both team and personal, it wasn't what I hoped for. But if I'm thinking about my development, I think it was very good. Liiga is probably the most defensive league in the world right now and I feel that this season I improved a lot in some areas that I needed to improve the most. I'm definitely more prepared to be the player NHL coaches are looking for without the puck than I was at the beginning of the season. I wrote in my October diary that my mindset for this season was to have fun and try to get a bit better every day, and I think I did that.
With our Liiga season ending, last week we had our year-end team trip. We went skiing at Oy Levi Ski Resort in the Lapland region of Finland. This week I've been back on the ice every day working on skating, skills and shooting. Next week (April 11-17), there is an Under-20 4 Nations Tournament (Czech Republic, Slovakia, Sweden, Finland) in Pribram, Czech Republic, so I'm preparing for and hoping to be invited to play in that. It will be the first event leading up the replay of the World Junior Championship in August.
Also, congratulations to Michigan and my cousin Jimmy Lambert on reaching the Frozen Four in Boston.
Finally, I realized the NHL Draft is getting closer when a couple of weeks ago I received an invitation to the NHL Scouting Combine, which will be held this year from May 29-June 4 in Buffalo. I've seen some video and followed the results of other players a bit from previous NHL Combine events in the past so I'm looking forward to being there myself.
Until next month, thanks for reading.
Photo credit: Tomi Natri, Pelicans
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