Metallurg Novokuznetsk - SKA. Press-conference

HC SKA head coach Oleg Znarok:

- I didn't enjoy the first period. Overall, we only played the right way in the second. Metallurg are a young team which fights hard. We will prepare for the next game.

- Are you pleased with how Nikita Gusev, Nikolai Prokhorkin and Alexander Barabanov played together?

- They performed well. However, they were put together because I am planning to use this line at the Karjala Cup.

HC Metallurg Novokuznetsk head coach Sergei Berdnikov:

- After not winning in normal time against Sibir, SKA made up for that points loss here. They have a talented team with players who competed at the World Cup. Nevertheless, we had our chances which we needed to score on. If in the first period we had taken advantage of our counterattacks, things could have been different. But, when you spend a lot of time in defence, you lose emotions, and when playing on the powerplay like we did, you need them. We looked at SKA's combination plays and will look to maybe use them ourselves.

- Why did you pick Vladislav Podyapolsky?

- The coaches decided to give Vladislav a chance, he wants to play. It was in our plans that he was going to play against SKA.

- Is he upset?

- Yes, of course. Last season, he took it in turns with Andrei Kareev to play, but this year, we have already decided who are our top two goaltenders. As a result, Vladislav doesn't always play, this was practically his first game.