Sergei Shirokov: "Teams always want to beat the reigning champions"

- Did Dinamo Riga surprise you at all?

- No, they didn't. We knew they have a young, fast team which will slowly begin to develop. We analysed them, and the game went as the coaches planned.

- Do you feel that opponents have special motivation to play SKA?

- Teams always want to beat the reigning champions. It's never easy for us. However, we're also trying our best in every match.

- Oleg Znarok stated that SKA didn't play that well.

- We had a big advantage, lots of powerplay opportunities but we only scored one special teams goal. We played 5 on 4 and 5 on 3, and we have to improve our powerplay performance.

- What was the game's key moment?

- It was tense until the end of the match. It's great that we prevented Dinamo from scoring on a 5 on 3, but they still found the net afterwards when the puck took a lucky ricochet. Overall, we controlled the game and deserved to win, but we need to score more powerplay goals.