Not only is it five wins on the bounce for Lukko, but the last four have all come in 60 minutes, and their latest victim were Assat, whose good start has deserted them following the 3-0 loss at home, as now they sit eighth following three defeats in succession.
Lukko lost Nuutti Viitasalo early for cross-checking, but having survived the goalless first period, they kicked on in the second with goals from Jami Krannila and Felix Robert, before Heikki Liedes wrapped it up in the third as Daniel Salonen made 24 saves to shut Assat out for 60 minutes.
Hameenlinna remain outside the play-off places despite becoming the first side to beat JYP this season, securing a 2-1 win that sees the Jyvaskyla fail to take all three points this season for the first time at the seventh attempt, and they remain in third place, missing the chance to go top.
The match saw one goal in each period, as Sami Paivarinta put the home side ahead in the eighth minute, then Leevi Tukiainen levelled early in the second period. However, JYP failed to kick on as expected, and five minutes from time, Viljami Jokirinne struck to give HPK the surprise victory.
Dropping out of the top four were SaiPa, who lost 4-3 away at KalPa in a repeat of the 2025 play-off final. It's two defeats in 60 minutes in a row for SaiPa, who had picked up at least one point in all of their first seven matches, while KalPa climb to 10th having had four wins and four defeats this season.
SaiPa took the lead three times, but the strikes from Ondrej Trejbal, Patrik Siikanen and Juuso Heikkila were all met with equalisers from Joona Saaralainen, Ville Ruotsalainen and Juuso Kononen. And when Joonas Lyytinen gave the home side their first lead, they held onto it for the final 16 minutes.
Only Lukko and leaders Ilves have longer winning streaks than Karpat, who made it three in a row with a 3-1 success at Kiekko-Espoo, ending the hosts' own chance to extend their winning run to three. The head-to-head record between the pair puts Karpat in sixth and KE seventh.
Eetu Pakkila had the visitors in front in 15 seconds before Jiri Tichacek added a second midway through the first period. Jani Lajunen soon halved the deficit, and 2-1 was how it stayed until Roni Hirvonen gave the Oulu side breathing space inside the final six minutes.
Jokerit remained in the bottom three and were unable to register back-to-back wins for the first time this season, yet they still picked up a point on the road at the champions, as Tappara needed overtime to win 3-2 and record successive wins of their own.
Former SaiPa man Maxime Fortier equalised twice for Jokerit, cancelling out second-period goals from Benjamin Rautiainen and Tomi Sallinen, but there was no chance for Fortier to respond to Joachim Blichfeld's strike to put Tappara ahead again, as it came in the fifth minute of the extra period.