Kakkonen Pohjoinen 18.8.

HauPa - GBK 40 20 40
o/u 2.5: 72 28

GBK is suffering from a severe player shortage, because in addition to their long-term injured players (T. Wentin, Halonen, Smith) they have three more players suspended (Jylhä, Svenlin, Roiko), who all were more or less regular starters.  And if that wasn't enough, they have had huge problems with HauPa everytime they've played against them, in fact it isn't that much of a stretch to say that HauPa has been the better team or at least equal in every modern era encounter these two have had. However, even with all the sidelined players and not so good history I think having HauPa as a favorite would be just too much. The loss of Räisänen to FC Dreeverit in the off-season has obviously been an issue since HauPa's defense is just a shadow of what it was last year. Considering that they let in almost double the amount of goals last season when Räisänen wasn't playing, that probably doesn't come as that big of a surprise when keeping in mind that they didn't bring any noteworthy replacements in. In the last few weeks HauPa has been somewhat competitive, and they look to have no significant injuries apart from Paldan, who has somehow scored three goals, and Reinikainen (questionable), who has been a regular starter in the center of the defense. GBK does have that infamous Warkaus JK loss in their recent games, but overall I can't say that they've played any worse than HauPa during the past few weeks. For all their fighting spirit, HauPa just doesn't possess enough quality for this level, so even at home it would be really difficult to find value with the current odds.