After the opening weekend of the first round of Liiga playoffs, Ilves is down 2-0. Game 1 was a heartbreaking 3-4 OT loss -- Ilves blew 0-2 and 1-3 leads, Kärpät eventually tied the game with 47 seconds left in the clock. In OT, Ilves had two PP opportunities, but did not capitalize on either one. Kärpät scored the OT winner short-handed, after Ilves lost a faceoff clean in their own zone, allowing a defenseman to tee up a near-perfect shot from the circle. Dostal stopped 31 of 35 and while this was not his best performance, he 100% gave his team a chance to win that game. Ilves totally shot themselves in the foot.
Game 2 was scoreless after 40 minutes, but a 3rd period 4-goal burst from the defending champs (one empty netter) proved to be too much for Ilves. Lukas stopped 32 of 35 and although he let in one pretty bad goal, it came 59 seconds before the end of the regulation, by which time the game was already 3-0 and Kärpät was cruising to victory anyway.
Ilves is skating on thin ice, they have to start winning games if they want to survive. To make matters worse, Ilves lost one of their top-4 defensemen to injury after a boarding incident, which in turn led to one of Kärpät's bottom-6 guys getting ejected from the game. This one could be a short series.