Sibir - SKA. Press-conference

HC SKA head coach Andrei Nazarov:

- First of all I want to congratulate Sibir with their win. Sibir showed a good game, and started excellently. We were sleeping in the first period, although beforehand we had prepared for the match. The second and third frames were better for us, but their goaltender played great. Overall it was an interesting game.

- Did Mikko Koskinen cope with the pressure today?

- Hockey's like this, it's a business. The fans hold the right to shout what they like from the stands, and it's hard to say if Mikko dealt with the pressure or not. Sibir's fans aren't happy that Mikko left, and they are allowed to say what they want.

- How would you rate his game?

- He could have performed better.

- This was the second game without Ilya Kovalchuk, and in the first line Ilya Kablukov was playing with Evgeny Artyukhin and Anton Burdasov, with the latter scoring again.

- We conceded five goals, and that means that no one is coping with the task at hand.

- Can the team feel Ilya's absence in the dressing room?

- The team should be able to play well without Ilya and Mikko. We all get paid a wage, and not a small one at that. 2:5 is bad for everyone.

HC Sibir head coach Andrei Skabelka:

- We prepared hard for our first home game of the season, especially as the champions were coming to play us. It was a good opening period, and we created a lot of chances managing to score. Saint Petersburg have gained in power while losing a bit of their quality, but it was still very tough to escape their pressure. I am thankful to our guys for giving everything and making up for their mistakes. Alexander Salak made the needed saves, and we are obviously very happy to win.

- In away games, Sibir scored a lot of goals from counterattacks. Your powerplay was better today however, and overall is this component improving?

- It's hard to say. Not everything is perfect, and the guys need time to get into the season and create chemistry between each other. On the powerplay you need quality and mutual understanding - at the moment we've got problems with this. We're working over it a lot, but so far it isn't really working out.