Alexei Ponikarovsky: "We had a lot of opportunities to score"

- Have you got any strength left?

- Yes, I think so. Everything is fine. It's clear that we're 0:3 down in the series, but we will prepare just like we did last year. We need to win one game at a time.

- What changed after the first two matches?

- We played aggressive hockey, shot a lot. We had a lot of chances to score both on the powerplay, and at equal strength. We were a bit unlucky.

- In the first period, did you not have a feeling that it was going to go to overtime?

- We played the whole game in one style, we tried to crash the net and play solid defensively. We were able to catch CSKA out on the counterattack on a number of occasions. We will prepare for the next game.

- You have had 13 powerplays in this series, and haven't scored once.

- As you saw, we had a lot of opportunities today, but we were unlucky. However I think that the guys will turn it around for the next match.

- Can you say that CSKA have practically qualified for the next round?

- No, I don't think so. Last year we were in the same situation. We are all professionals in the dressing room, there is not panic. We wanted to win today, and we gave it our all. We will fight as hard in the next match.

- Do you have the reserves to turn this series around?

- It's our powerplay. It helped us out against Lokomotiv and Dynamo, and we will work over this component. We need to play as physical, and I think that everything will work out.

- Geoff Platt keeps on scoring against you on the slot.

- We know their style: they crash the net, dump the puck in and try to score. For their goal, Slava hit the puck against Geoff Platt's leg, and he batted the flying puck into the net. We could have scored a similar goal, but luck wasn't on our side today.

- Did you encourage Nikita Gusev after he missed a few chances?

- Of course, when the player skates back to the bench, we try and build him up. We wanted to score, but never mind, we will continue to work.