Following their two-game wobble in mid-January, Tappara roared back with three consecutive wins, and the visit of their nearest challengers was not about to dent their form.
Despite losing Jyrki Jokipakki for slashing, Tappara took the lead after five minutes when Ondrej Pavel intercepted the puck, held off the defence and fired in a shorthanded goal. That set the tone of the evening, and it took less than two minutes later, the returning Jokipakki doubled the advantage.
SaiPa didn't make use of any of their three powerplays in the first 20 minutes, and that came back to bite when they had Eero Klintrup sent to the box, and Joachim Blichfeld put Tappara 3-0 ahead in the final minute.
The all-action, aggressive first period was followed by a more sedate second, in which SaiPa got themselves a goal with under eight minutes to play through Karri Aho, however, the period ended just as the first had, with Blichfeld scoring to make it a three-goal game again.
The points were all but won one minute into the final period, when Benjamin Rautiainen added a fifth for the Battle Axe, before SaiPa completely lost their discipline, conceding penalty after penalty, including a personal foul by Maxime Fortier with three minutes to play.
Kristian Tanus added the final goal on a powerplay in the 59th minute, as Blichfeld took his personal points tally to four, and Tappara signed off on a 6-1 win. That takes them 10 points clear of the Lappeenranta outift, who have now lost two of their last three matches.
SaiPa are now just a point clear of JYP, who needed overtime to secure a 2-1 win at home to TPS Turku. Alexander True struck the winner to give JYP their second win in a row, while TPS sit 11th with only one win from their last four.
The ever-changing occupancy of fourth place now belongs to Lukko, who finally ended their five-match losing run by pulling away from IFK Helsinki in the final minutes to win 6-2, as Jakob Stenqvist scored a hat-trick and Alex Beaucage netted twice to condemn ninth-placed HIFK to a first defeat in three.
Fourth place belonged to KalPa just a few days ago, but a pair of defeats has seen the champions slip back to seventh, the latest of which was a 3-2 home loss to Assat after OT, despite leading 2-0. Rami Maatta scored the winner for the Aces, who stay eighth, two points shy of the Kuopio side.