Sibir - SKA. Press-conference

HC SKA head coach Oleg Znarok:

- We're satisfied that this road trip was a successful one. Now, we will rest for a couple of days and prepare for the next games.

- Are SKA bored of winning?

- That's a tough question. Everything's going well so far, and hopefully our form will continue.

- You are playing with four pairs of defensemen.

- Our roster isn't that big, but we're trying to give everyone a game to keep them in shape.

- Igor Shestyorkin played all of these matches. Can he win the competition with Mikko Koskinen for the number one spot?

- Igor played really well in these games, he has our confidence.

- Evgeny Ketov left the ice early.

- He's fine now.

- SKA have won 16 matches in a row. Will your team ever lose a game?

- Do you want us to lose?

- No.

- Then what are you talking about?

- Rate the performances of Patrik Hersley and Jarno Koskiranta.

- As you saw for yourselves, the guys played excellently. Patrik even scored.

- Why didn't you put Alexander Dergachyov in the line-up? It's his birthday.

- We don't put players in the roster because it's their birthday.

HC Sibir Novosibirsk head coach Pavel Zubov:

- I congratulate SKA with their victory. It's hard to beat such a quality team if you don't have that fire within. We don't have that required spirit to go out and beat everyone, so this is why the score is 0:3. I apologise to the fans for the team's performance.

- What needs to be done in order to beat SKA?

- You cannot beat SKA if you play without spirit. We played well in the past two games, especially against Lokomotiv. Our players decided not to fight against SKA, but you have to battle for every inch on the ice when playing with SKA. Their players make decisions within a quarter of a second, but we need to make five steps with possession while we decide what to do with the puck.

- Sibirskie Snaypery have just had a home run of matches. Did you look at the young players?

- We can see how they perform during the training process. Pavel Tkachenko was the best player last season, but what can you say about him now? It's tough for everyone to move from junior to senior ice hockey. In the MHL ,they compete on special teams and are the leading players, however they have different jobs when playing in the KHL. Not all of the understand this.

- Did Alexei Sopin live up to your expectations?

- When signing him, we looked at the fact that he played in Gagarin Cup winning teams and was at the centre of things. We wanted him to give the team more physical strength. Despite his height and weight, he's proved that he can do this.

- Sibir earned two penalties for too many men on the ice.

- Vyacheslav Osnovin keeps jumping out of the bench. Maybe we need to put a lead on him. The situation is annoying him too.

- Igor Levitsky hasn't played for a while.

- You will see him at some point. He needs to have more committment, we don't need a team with ballerinas on the ice. The players have to work hard in every shift all game long. We cannot let opponents take points from us without our players putting in some effort. Igor Levitsky is working hard at training, he's doing a good job.