SKA - Admiral. Press-conference

HC SKA head coach Roman Rotenberg:

"I'm really grateful to the fans for their wonderful support and the team for this important victory. This was a really challenging game for us, practically all of our guys have played in six games across just nine days! Physically they feel fine, but emotionally it's tough. They had spent a lot of emotions in our preceding games.

"Nevertheless, I'm happy that they managed to dig deep, find their emotions and grind out a vital win. Thankfully, we now have an opportunity to rest and prepare to face CSKA in Moscow on Wednesday. CSKA are a really strong opponent, so we have to be ready for a really difficult game. 

"Admiral are a well-drilled, organised side, they have the tallest team in the KHL and play with an awful amount of commitment. They block pucks, make a lot of deflections on the crease, play solidly in defence and don't allow opponents to break them down. This was a real challenge for our guys today, but that makes our win even sweeter. I think that Admiral can cause a lot of teams real problems in the playoffs, and we have to point out that their goalkeeper played excellently today. Their system is similar to the one which the Latvian national team uses."

HC SKA defenseman Danila Galenyuk:

"My mistake for the second Admiral goal? I didn't notice the opponent, instead of keeping him in front of me I lost position and he took full advantage. Timing was the key, and in that particular incident he was better than me.

"Nonetheless, that mistake only provided me with motivation to improve and make up for my error."

HC SKA forward Matvei Korotky:

"The main differences between the KHL, MHL and VHL? The KHL is a lot quicker, and there are more physical battles, duels and shots. It's a completely different level of ice hockey if we're going to compare it to the other leagues. My emotions playing at the SKA Arena? I felt nervous on my debut, but not anymore. I love playing here with our passionate supporters!"

HC Admiral Vladivostok head coach Leonid Tambiev:

"Our guys did a great job, they followed our game plan. Of course, we understood who we were facing, where we were playing and the opponents' attacking firepower. If you want to earn any points against SKA at their ground, you have to display full commitment and character. We're satisfied that we took one point away from this match, our players put in a huge amount of work. SKA took advantage of the fact that we were lacking concentration and freshness in the latter stages.

"It was clear just how motivated our players were for facing SKA. It's not possible for us to compete for victory against SKA using an attacking brand of ice hockey, we're happy to give them the perimeter and focus on defending our crease. We had analysed just how well SKA play on the counter and faceoffs. We cannot afford to play gung-ho ice hockey against teams like SKA, instead we want to achieve successful results.

"We began losing the faceoffs after an initial positive start? SKA were slow in the first period, but then they subsequently improved and dominated the second stanza. Due to their bench being next to the attacking zone, SKA always dominate second periods and often destroy their opponents. We managed to win six out of the 17 faceoffs inside our zone during the second frame, but SKA fully held the initiative and didn't allow our players to get to the bench in time. Daniil Gutik's powerplay goal did give us a breath of fresh air.

"Andrei Mishurov's performance in net? Due to Ilya Konovalov's injury, he's going to play in our games before the short New Year break. Andrei is a young, talented guy who fully has our trust."