SKA - Salavat Yulaev. Press-conference

HC Salavat Yulaev head coach Igor Zakharkin:

- Unfortunately, it wasn't our game. Right from the opening faceoff, I saw an unsure team which couldn't get on its game in the first period. In the second period we scored some goals, but I don't think that they were logical. Nevertheless, we still managed to turn the match around. In the third frame we were afraid to make a mistake, afraid of their strong players, and in the end I have to say that I saw a paralysed team in Salavat Yulaev jerseys. The opponents deserved to win, SKA played to the end and took advantage of their chances.

- What happened to your team? You probably analysed SKA's game to the bones.

- I wanted our players to give SKA competition, especially to give their defencemen a test. It's not a secret that Saint Petersburg's defencemen are the main figures of the Russian national team, and I thought that I also have players who are worthy of the national team. However, it proved too early for those thoughts.

- In the third period, did you want to play to keep the score the same or to try and score more goals?

- How can you play to keep the score the same when the opposition are trying to score? I don't know how to play that way. Yes, we needed to play with short shifts, counterattack faster, crash the net. We didn't do that either, and as a result I didn't see the team that I wanted in the third period.

- Last season, the Ice Palace was your home arena. How did you appreciate the atmosphere being the opposition's coach?

- I didn't think about that at all. This is the work of a professional coach. Any team should cope with an arena's energy, whether it is home or not. I can't call this arena an away one.

- Being one of the top psychological coaches in the league, why were your team so constrained?

- It's nice that our opinions coincide. This is because we were burning with desire to show that we can play well in defence too. Usually we play fast, move from defence to attack. For that the players should show good movement without the puck, but today we couldn't do it. This led up to the eventual score. To be clear, we saw the level of our players. Some players are up to the level of top national teams - Russia, Sweden, Finland. They can cope with the demands and play to get the result at this level, however there are others who are meeting this pressure for the first time.

- As head coach, did you want to prove something?

- If someone can't hold in their emotions and wants to prove something, he shouldn't be working as a head coach.

HC SKA head coach Sergei Zubov:

- The game was interesting, both teams had a lot of chances. We're lucky that we scored the first two goals on the powerplay. Second periods are our problems, we allowed the opponents to turn the game around. Nevertheless, in the third we showed our strong aspects and scored as many goals as we could. This gave us the result. The team gave everything today, and I am really happy for them.

- Maxim Sokolov said that before the third period, you made some changes. What were they?

- We'll leave this within our team. I repeat that we took advantage of our top qualities. A lot of our players can shoot well, and can crash the net.

- Did you have a tactic of shooting a lot against a high scoring Salavat team?

- We used a lot of components together, but we'll keep this within our team.

- How did Steve Moses slot into the team?

- During the first game you can always feel how anxious the player is, and Steve isn't any different. We have no problems with his movement. He needs a bit of time to fit into the team's style, and then everything will be fine.