Tigers started as expected with an active and maybe even too aggressive man-man defense, since Ales Zalesny took an unnecessary penalty for holding after only 21 seconds. Erä’s power play was still somewhat rusty and especially Jani Helenius missed an open goal lifting the ball over the net.
Tigers took the lead shorthanded when Marc Dysli freed Marc Muhlethaler, who outplayed the Finnish goalie Jani Naumanen. Erä got a second power play, when Simon Stucki took two minutes for roughing, but no goals for Erä here either. The equalizer came after a grave mistake by Christian Suter, who gave the ball to Jaakko Rissanen who then easily scored. Erä’s third line outplayed Tigers first when Tom Strömsten scored 1-2 directly from a free hit in the corner. The game continued to be fast and Tigers equalized luckily when Lauri Kapanen broke his stick and went to pick it up and Rolf Lüthi used the opportunity. Then Juhani Särkelä took a holding penalty giving Tigers the lead 3-2 after a very good power play free-hit just in front of the net where Simon Stucki scored assisted by Ales Zalesny. The first period was at time quite hard, with a lot of almost too hard tackles.
The second period started with the same high intensity as the first. Tigers lost the lead as Sami Lehtinen scores 3-3 and Jani Kukkola then fooled the entire Tiger defense and then serving a perfect pass to Lauri Kapanen deep down at the corner of the goal, giving Erä the 3-4 lead. Erä’s capability to move the ball fast on the floor and turning the playing direction proved to be problematic for Tigers, leading to a number of fouls and a penalty for repeated offences. Erä still had problems with their power play and Tigers had an equal amount of chances shorthanded. As the game continued, it became clear that only Tigers first reformed-line with Zalesny-Oilinki-Stucki could keep up with the finns, which plays with three strong lines and are ready to pass into even very small free spaces. Jani Kukkola increased the lead for Erä first to 3-5 after 34.08 and then Jaakko Rissanen to 3-6, both after small marking mistakes by Lagnau leaving the blade open for the finns to shoot.
Tiger came back into the game after an early own goal by Erä, where the returning defender Pekka Ahonen kicked the deflecting ball into his own goal with his knee. This 4-6 goal gave Tigers more self-esteem changing the game picture completely and the tigers where all over the field even hitting the post twice before Marc Muhlethalerscored 5-6 after 49 minutes. Erä also grew passiv and stopped moving. It was small marginals that differed between the two teams, but in the free-hit goal scored by Lauri Kapanen (51.45) the swiss players just stood there when the finns moved the ball from player to player. Marcus Gerber still gave Tigers some hope with his goal to 6-7, with five minutes to go. Tigers Langnau needed to win the game in order to qualify for the final round, so they took out the goalie with three minutes to go. Tigers built their 6 vs. 5 play, with trying to shoot far away, the first attempt paid off when Marcus Gerber after 57.49 found the goal at the far post shooting from mid field equalizing the score to 7-7. Tigers tried desperately to score in the end, but Erä’s third line prevented the Tiger players from getting into any real goal scoring situations.
The draw gave Erä a place in the EFC Final Round in Fredrikshaven in October, for a second time in a row from the 2nd best team qualifications.
