With the maximum 12 points after four games, Tappara Tampere have secured their place in the Round of 16 with a 4-2 win over the visiting Grizzlys from Wolfsburg. Wolfsburg actually outshot Tappara 28-24 in the game, but they ran into goaltender Dominik Hrachovina in top form.

Wolfsburg ran into trouble with a couple of early penalties and the Tappara power play made them pay - Mikko Lehtonen’s shot through a crowd squirted through Gerald Kuhn at 5:39. Another power-play goal made it 2-0 at 13:02 on Otso Rantakari’s one-timer from the point.

Having been stymied by Hrachovina on a couple of occasions already, Kris Foucault got Wolfsburg on the board with a nice drive to the net in the 27th minute, but Jere Karjalainen restored the two-goal difference less than five minutes later when he followed up Otto Rauhala’s rush and put it over a fallen Kuhn. Matti Järvinen made it 4-1 on a determined effort halfway through the third, while Sebastian Furcher’s long slapper with less than three minutes left was too little, too late for Wolfsburg.

Despite the loss, the Grizzlys are not in bad shape to advance. Salzburg’s loss in Banská Bystrica means that the Grizzlys have a three-point lead going into their home-and-away series with the Red Bulls. That means that two points in total from the two games will be enough to see them through as the group’s second seed.