SKA - Torpedo. Press-conference of Game Two

HC Torpedo head coach Peteris Skudra:

- It was a good game and a hard victory. Thanks to our guys for this performance.

- Why was Ivan Kasutin selected for today's game? Maybe it's because he played for SKA in the past?

- That was two years ago, and I don't think that he had special motivation for this game. We have two even goalkeepers, this is the playoffs, and Ivan fought hard today.

- As you won, are you not going to criticize the refereeing today?

- Everyone say everything. There's nothing to comment on. I said what I said yesterday, and now we move on.

HC SKA head coach Vyacheslav Bykov:

- After yesterday's game our players weren't prepared mentally, and allowed the opponents to pull away in the first period. Unfortunately it was very difficult to fight back, and despite giving out a lot of strength, we couldn't do it.

- What happened with the powerplay unit? And why didn't you pull the goaltender 1.43 from the end?

- The opponents have been studying us, although we had chances with a man's advantage. We simply don't know how to play on the powerplay, and it has been a problem for quite some time. About our goaltender, then we don't have a forward who will 100% win the faceoff draw. As a result we left him in net for a bit longer until we had the puck.

- Does SKA have a champion's character?

- The foundations are there.

- Do all the players understand that it is the playoffs?

- I hope so. We are telling the players this, in case they are living in the past. Sometimes however it seems as though these words aren't getting through. It's a shame that one of our players got hit in the head late on, as if the opponents had played like that at the beginning, maybe we would have woken up earlier. The referees missed that though, and the match commissioner will have to take a look at that one.

Peteris Skudra: - He has a lot of work to do about hits to the head, he seems to not see them at all.