SKA - Dinamo Minsk. Press-conference

HC SKA head coach Roman Rotenberg:

“All matches against Dmitry Kvartalnov are always tense. Dinamo Minsk are a really strong team, they had won nine consecutive games before today.

“We’re really happy with our performance. We stuck to our game plan throughout the maiden two periods, however we did slightly move away from it in the third. It’s a shame that we couldn’t keep a clean sheet, Yegor Zavragin deserved a shutout.

“Opposing teams make it difficult for us to break down their defence. Stanislav Berezhnoi is currently our back-up goalkeeper? He’s a really talented guy. Pavel Moisevich is with SKA-Neva in the VHL at the moment in order to receive ice time, but he will fly with us to the Ural region next week. We’re counting on all of our goaltenders.

“Are we hoping to qualify for the Gagarin Cup playoffs as one of the top four seeds? Our task is to win every game.”

HC Dinamo Minsk head coach Dmitry Kvartalnov:

“We took far too many penalties. I didn’t like how we competed 5-on-5 either, especially in the attacking zone. It was obvious that SKA were fresher and had plenty of motivation.
“Did we miss Alexander Volkov? Of course we did! He’s one of our leading players. Nevertheless, if we want to be a top team, we can’t play worse purely because of one player missing. SKA were stronger than us in terms of physical play.”