Tappara had asserted their dominance of the league with a 6-1 thrashing of second-placed SaiPa not 24 hours earlier, yet that counted for nothing against IFK Helsinki, despite Henrik Haapala giving the visitors a fourth-minute lead.
That's because not only did Aron Kiviharju level matters a few minutes later, but three unanswered goals to begin the second period from Niklas Nykyri, Vincent Marleau and a second from Kiviharju give HIFK a 4-1 advantage with 23 minutes to play.
Jyrki Jokipakka pulled one back for Tappara before the second period was out, only for the three-goal lead to be restored through Daniel Makiaho with nine minutes left.
However, the Tampere side showed their mettle late on, with a three-goal run of their own - Oiva Keskinen began the fightback with a Kristian Tanus assist, before the roles were reversed and Tanus played his part in setting up Keskinen to make it 5-4 in the 17th minute of period three.
With just over a minute left on the clock, Tappara completed the fightback when the ever-reliable Joachim Blichfeld scored to make it 5-5 and send the game to overtime. No goals in the extra period meant a shootout would be needed to settle matters.
After three scoreless attempts each, Makiaho converted for HIFK, before Benjamin Rautiainen's effort joined the list of missed penalties, and HIFK took the win, 6-5.
The Helsinki side sit ninth following three wins in their last four, as the Battle Axe see their four-match winning run ended, which began after a two-game run of defeats which included a 5-4 home defeat to HIFK on 16th January.
SaiPa appeared to be feeling a hangover from their heavy loss to Tampere, as they made it back-to-back defeats, going down 3-2 after a shootout at home to Kiekko-Espoo, for whom John Stevens struck the winner to end a three-match losing run that keeps KE just behind HIFK in 10th place.
The Lappeenranta side have lost their grip on second in the table, as JYP recovered from an early setback to win 4-1 away at Vaasan Sport. It's three wins on the spin now for JYP, who are nine points behind Tappara, while Sport's losing streak now sits at five games.
13 points is still the gap between the Vaasa side and Karpat, who failed to find a way past Filip Lindberg, who made 21 saves in Assat's 4-0 victory. It's four wins in five for the Aces, who finally move up from eighth to seventh, while the Oulu outfit have now lost three in a row.
Back at the top, fourth place once again belongs to KooKoo, who were 3-1 up after 10 minutes before wrapping up a 5-1 victory over TPS Turku. It's a maximum nine points from their last three for KooKoo, as TPS remain in the final Playoff place, still with a four-point cushion.
Dropping back out of the top four are Lukko, who discovered that in the incredibly tight race for the premium places, overtime wins are not enough. Mikael Ruohomaa's goal in OT was enough for a 1-0 win at Hameenlinna, who remain in 14th following three defeats in a row.
The big losers in the race for fourth today were KalPa, who conceded twice to Jens Looke as Ilves took a 3-1 win in a real six-pointer in front of over 12,000 fans. KalPa join the ranks of teams on a three-game losing streak, while the Lynx sit sixth, level on points with KooKoo and Lukko.
The current longest active winning run in the Liiga now belongs to 11th-placed Pelicans, who won a fifth game running by beating Jukurit 2-1 at home and put five points between themselves and the Mikkeli side in 13th. Remarkably, Pelicans' streak has come immediately after a seven-game losing run.