SKA - Avtomobilist. Press-conference

HC SKA head coach Roman Rotenberg:

- We played against a very strong opponent. Avtomobilist have strong players like Brooks Macek, Stephane Da Costa and Anatoly Golyshev, and they're in first place of the Eastern Conference. In preparation for this game, we had worked on our tactics and on correcting our previous mistakes. We were excellent during the first 10 minutes, but we only scored one goal. After that, for some reason we moved away from our way of playing the game. We gifted the opponents their goal. However, after having a good conversation in the dressing room, we started playing well again. We scored great goals on the crease to win this match. Our guys did a great job, they won the battle on the crease. If you win the battle there, you win games. I would also like to thank the fans for their support and energy.

- What exactly needs to be improved moving forward?

- The main thing is to not gift opposing teams goals. We want our players to play for the full 60 minutes in accordance with our system and for them to fight for each other. Why would we give the opponents presents? Our management, sponsors and Gazprom are supporting us, namely Alexei Miller. We have to remember that all teams want to play at their best against us. Tomorrow, we'll analyse our mistakes during training.

- It was clear that you had studied Avtomobilist well. What surprises did they spring for you?

- The surprise was that we conceded a goal after initially dominating for the opening 10 minutes! Also, when we had a 3-on-1 chance, we made a pass to the opponents. That was a surprise too. Avtomobilist are one of the KHL's leading teams, they have high-quality players like Macek who we know from the 2018 Olympic Games. Everyone knows what a master Da Costa is, and Golyshev and Nikita Tryamkin are top players.

- Did you have the target of not taking penalties? Avtomobilist have one of the best powerplays in the KHL.

- Of course! The best PK is when you don't take penalties! Our players competed with discipline today, they didn't do anything unnecessary. Discipline is the key to winning.

- We've noticed that you now have two players standing on the crease when you're competing on the powerplay.

- If you win the battle on the crease, you win the game. Yes, you always receive hits from the opponents when you're on the slot, but that's the way it works in ice hockey. Two of our goals were scored from the crease today.

- Nikita Gusev is still without a club. Do SKA need him?

- We regularly speak. Nevertheless, time will tell. A decision will soon be made. We're always waiting for Nikita here, he can help SKA and Russian ice hockey overall. With desire and his ice hockey intelligence, he can be one of our leading players. I hope that everything will work out.

- Did you have a conversation with Pavel Datsyuk before this match? He had previously played for both SKA and Avtomobilist.

- We're in good relations with Pavel. He is a great ice hockey player, a true example for young players growing up. Not long ago, I watched how Detroit forward Dylan Larkin stole the puck from an opponent who was about to score into the empty net. I immediately recalled that he was displaying one of Datsyuk's moves! We don't speak before games, but afterwards we do in order to exchange opinions.

- Will Dmitry Buchelnikov play for the senior SKA team during this home series? He hasn't been on the ice for a while.

- Dmitry is currently playing really well and scoring goals for SKA-Neva in the VHL. We're monitoring the progress of all of our players. As you can see, all of our games are very physical, so we need our players to be in optimal physical shape. All of our young players need to improve in this regard, and then they will play. Maybe Buchelnikov will play in the next game, we'll have to see. Time will tell.

- Given that Avtomobilist are the leading team of the Eastern Conference, how important was it for you to beat them?

- It was a very important match for us, especially psychologically. We always need to prove that we're the best team. It takes a lot of work, we're improving the small details. Vladimir Yurzinov came here today, he is helping us a lot this season.

- Alexander Medvedev also attended the match.

- We congratulated him with the fact that the Zenit women's team won the Russian Super League. This is important for Alexei Miller. Gazprom is investing a lot into sport, we really appreciate it. We are grateful for the faith being shown in us. Just like the Zenit women's team, we also want to achieve success!

HC SKA forward Danila Moiseev:

- It was a tough, interesting match. Thankfully, there weren't many penalties. We're all happy that we managed to emerge victorious.

- Did you study how Avtomobilist play in detail? They are in first position of the Eastern Conference.

- We mainly focused on their powerplay. Overall, they play just like the rest of the teams do in the KHL. We simply looked at how they compete on the powerplay, there weren't a lot of theory lessons.

- You have recently returned from injury. Are you fearful of receiving another injury on the ice?

- You don't have fear at all when playing in games, you're fully focused on what is happening on the ice. I'm not satisfied with how I'm playing right now, but the main thing is that the team is winning.

HC SKA forward Pavel Koltygin:

- It was a good game today, it was contested at a high pace.

- You have earned your first KHL point. Did your teammates congratulate you with this?

- Thank you to my teammates for creating that chance for me. I had long been waiting for my first KHL point, but the main thing is that it helped the team win today.

HC Avtomobilist Yekaterinburg Nikolai Zavarukhin:

- There were a lot of physical duels and attacking play today. From our point of view, it's a real shame that not all of our players were ready to compete at this pace. In order to beat a team like SKA, all 22 players have to be fully ready for such a high pace and the physical duels. At the same time, we wasted good opportunities to score goals. SKA didn't allow us to put together quick attacking plays.

- A lot of your shots seemed to fly off target. Did you get too pumped up for this game?

- I wouldn't say that. We had told the guys that they were going to play against the leading KHL team, but their goalkeeper was excellent and we needed to surprise them with our decisions more. We woke up for the third period.

- Brooks Macek wasted quite a few big opportunities when you were 1:3 down in the third frame.

- It's obvious that he really wanted to score. If you score, you win games. Furthermore, we lost the battle on our own crease, SKA scored two goals from close range in this match.

- Patrice Cormier - a Canadian - is your captain. You don't often see Canadian players being the captains of Russian teams!

- Our captain is normally Sergei Shirokov, but he's injured at the moment. We have four players who can be the captain for us. Patrice is helping our team both on and off the ice, he's a fighter out there.

- SKA are always strong in the second periods of games thanks to the bench being in the attacking zone. Did you focus on this when preparing for this match?

- In terms of statistics, SKA are the best team in the third period. We had shown our players on video that SKA always like to skate towards the attacking zone. Am I satisfied with our overall performance? A coach can never be satisfied if his team lost.

- 18-year-old forward Viktor Neuchev is receiving a lot of ice time in the KHL this season. Can you see his progress?

- He is also playing on our second powerplay unit. If we work in the right way, I am hopeful that he will become a good player. It's great that we have him in our team, I always like the energy which young players add on the ice.

- SKA had a few days off before this match, whereas you were coming off the back of difficult games.

- We had emotionally tough games against Kazan and Khabarovsk, but there's no point in blaming the schedule. We should have been ready for this. We knew that SKA would start on the front foot, they always like to immediately throw the puck into the attacking zone and apply pressure on the opponents.

- Your three goalkeepers Igor Bobkov, Johan Mattsson and Vladimir Galkin are all playing in practically the same amount of games.

- When we signed Bobkov, we knew that he needed to reboot his career. He hadn't played a lot for Ak Bars in Kazan, plus we didn't know if we would have a foreign goalkeeper for the season. On one hand it's great when you have three strong goaltenders, but on the other it creates a problem when selecting the team. We're always speaking with the goalkeeping coach and the players themselves.