Roman Rotenberg speaks after beating CSKA in Moscow

HC SKA head coach Roman Rotenberg:

- It's wonderful when two teams display such a high level of ice hockey. If we had more matches like this one, we would move forward. Players develop when the competition is so high like it was on the ice today. In terms of the level of ice hockey, today's game was no worse than NHL matches. We're always happy to play CSKA, they have a strong team with excellent coaches. Our players followed our game plan. If we look back at last season, then we have changed our tactics and other details. Our goalkeeper was brilliant after having flown in from Vladivostok. Nikita Serebryakov and the whole team achieved something special today, it was a tough game but we managed to emerge victorious. I would like to congratulate everyone with this triumph! We will now move on to our next match.

- Today we saw a balanced, focused SKA team. What has been affecting you at the start of the campaign?

- The main thing is that we will show high-quality ice hockey in the spring! We aren't looking at the standings, instead we're focused on our performance level and our tactics. Since game six against CSKA last season at this very stadium, we have engaged in a lot of hard work. As a consequence of the national team's series with Belarus, the players joined up

with the team at different stages in the summer. This season, unlike in the previous campaign, none of us became ill while playing in the Far East. For this game we introduced fresh players, and we can see that our decision paid off. This was my 20th match against CSKA as the SKA head coach, and you know how often we competed with these opponents beforehand too. We possess a huge amount of experience playing against CSKA.

- On both occasions after conceding, you quickly equalised.

- As I have already said, we have a lot of experience of playing against CSKA. This is ice hockey of a very high level. We would like to play against them every game, both the coaches and the players love playing in these matches! CSKA always like to get the puck on net and to the crease. If we speak about the conceded goals, then the second was scored as a consequence of a ricochet off our defenseman. CSKA's maiden marker arrived because we made a mistake. Yes, we played well today, but we can perform a lot better. We continue working hard.

- You scored two goals when skating through 1-on-1. Was this because you had studied the opponents well?

- This is down to the efforts of the whole team. In comparison to last season, we changed our approach and tactics. Moreover, we have a lot of different players in our team too. We moved the puck well for our goals. Our winner was scored while playing shorthanded? We're always practicing how to score goals while on the PK, it's a part of modern ice hockey. If you watch the NHL, then you'll see that every team scores shorthanded! Timing is crucial, you have to pick your moment and capitalise on it. It's also important that we scored on the powerplay today.

- Why is Serebryakov such a strong goaltender?

- As a consequence of playing for our national team in the series against Belarus in May, he understands our system well and how our defensemen like to play. He knows all of our players because we spent a month living together with the Russian national side! When you achieve a victory, it's down to the contributions made by every single player. Different situations occur on the ice, last season we once pulled the goalkeeper in the second period against Vityaz in Balashikha! This is ice hockey, you always have to find the best options. We're happy that we have strong goaltenders in our team. Unfortunately, we do have injuries at the moment, Andrei Pedan will be back for the Gagarin Cup playoffs, Stepan Falkovsky has a fracture and Brendan Leipsic is out with serious concussion. Johan Mattsson has been on the sidelines for a month too. Fresh players such as Ivan Zinchenko, Svyatoslav Grebenshchikov and Pavel Dedunov competed today, and they added what we had been lacking. This is a true team win!