Helsinki Captain Tyler Seguin holds up the EURO Cup in Berlin after the Jokerits beat The Smurfs in four games.
The Jokerit beat Berlin 4-1 Monday to capture their second EURO Cup in 3 seasons and their second in league history. Both times, Helsinki won it in four games over Berlin.
The game was was even at 0-0 after a period and 1-1 after two, but Helsinki’s Ryan Strome, who was once a Smurf, worked some magic in the third period to help his team take a 3-1 lead into the game’s last few minutes. The key moment came with 12:12 remaining when Strome picked up a bobbled puck and raced from just outside the blueline in on goalie Calvin Pickard. Strome looked up and just shot … no deke, no stickhandling … and it went 5 hole to give Helsinki the lead they only added to when Kyle Connor tallied on a powerplay with 7:21 left (Strome earned an assist) and Patrik Laine added an empty net goal to make the final 4-1.
Helsinki also finished first in the regular season, albeit by a tie-breaker to Minsk. Berlin seemed to be saving it for the playoffs, as they finished third in the Southern Conference and 8th overall before easily brushing aside Lisbon and Bratislava and then winning a nail-biter against Munich in Round 3 that went seven games. Helsinki’s toughest series was actually its Round 1 win over Dublin that came down to a 2-1 win in Game 7. The Jokerit also beat Copenhagen and Minsk on the way to the Finals.
There was some controversy in the finals when Berlin GM Guybrush Threepwood cried – literally – after Sepp Blatter, the league’s Director of Player Safety and Discipline refused to meet with him. It was not clear why Guybrush and his suitcase needed to meet with Blatter. To add salt to the wound, several of Berlin’s top cheerleaders were seen cheering for Kyle Connor and Tyler Seguin during Games 3 and 4. Berlin is quite used to playing in the Finals. The Smurfs were the Southern Conference’s representative in eight of the last nine championship series and they also made it there in Season 5.
Offensive firepower was the hallmark of the Helsinki team this season. In the playoffs, they averaged more than 38 shots per game. And while their defense allowed a decent amount of shots on their net, goalie Andres De La Garma was excellent and helped the team record the lowest goals against average in the playoffs. The Mexican who won two Cups with Copenhagen earlier in his career, had a 91.8 save percentage in the playoffs and that was 1.5 percentage points better than his regular season record.
Helsinki will have most of the team back for Season 18, but there could be two holes at a vital position in the lineup. The top two centers, Sergei Mozyakin and captain Tyler Seguin, are in the final year of their contracts and both are 34 or older.
The Jokerit aren;t the only team that could look different in a few months. Berlin, in fact, has five forwards plus defenseman Staffan Kronwall and goalie Calvin Pickard in the final year of their contract right now.
