SKA - Medvescak. Press-conference

HC Medvescak Zagreb head coach Gordie Dwyer:

- First of all, congratulations to SKA for the three points. Certainly, I appreciated the team's effort today, I thought we were prepared and ready to play. We feel we deserved a better result, but at the end of the day, we knew we weren't going to win at a skills competition with SKA. The opportunities they had on the powerplay was their skill prevailing and that's the difference in this hockey game. I liked our effort and how we came back in the third period, it truly showed our character, but unfortunately we fell short.

- Rate Ilya Arkalov's performance.

- Ilya is a good fighter for a hockey team. He is one of our youngest players, and he brings a lot of energy to the team. We are giving him more chances along the course of the season, he deserves it. He is a young hockey player and is performing well.

HC SKA head coach Sergei Zubov:

- Thank you for the congratulations. It was a tense game, and it didn't begin well for our team. Nevertheless we found strength, the guys brought their tempo up, drew needed penalties and created a lot of chances.

- Why was Vadim Shipachyov's line not included in the squad? How much did the team miss them?

- We have a big squad. Today we decided to play in this line-up, and it proved to be the right decision.

- Will the three foreign players keep on playing together, or is this an experiment?

- There is little time left for experiments before the playoffs. We are trying to improve our lines over the course of this home run, but we have five lines and all deserve to play. We will decide the team for each match on game day.

- Did you call Yegor Rykov up because of his good performance at the World Junior Championship?

- He was very reliable at that tournament, and that has given him a chance to play in the first team. This was his second game, however he was better in the first against CSKA. We are looking into the future, and hope that he will become a first team player.