SKA - Vityaz. Press-conference

HC SKA head coach Roman Rotenberg:

- We expected a difficult match, the opponents were always going to be full of motivation. They played to their limit. At the same time, we have to remember that we have had different schedules. We managed to dig in after our road trip and earn the victory, the guys did a great job! We will now have an opportunity to rest a bit, we certainly need it. A lot of players are coming back from injury, including goalkeeper Alexander Samonov. We will continue working.

- Vityaz's schedule was slightly easier than your one.

- All teams are in the same boat, but we had been on the road. Our away games had been really tough. We needed to find our reserves today, and we did. The guys gave all they had. I would like to thank our fans for their fantastic support, they gave us a burst of energy and emotions today. Thank you to everyone who came to the Ice Palace for this match, we're counting on your support again on Tuesday!

HC Vityaz Moscow Region head coach Vyacheslav Butsaev:

- Apart from the last few minutes when we conceded avoidable goals, we performed well. However, we haven't earned any points. Congratulations to SKA with their win.

- You challenged SKA's third goal. Were you confident that goaltender interference had been involved?

- This year, the regulations allow for television screens to be on our benches. Everything was clear on the screen. I won't say anything else, there's no point.

HC SKA forward Zakhar Bardakov:

- It was a tough match. Thank God that we managed to win. Perhaps we were a bit tired, we were coming off the back of a difficult road trip which contained challenging games in Moscow. We had lost a lot of emotions.

HC SKA forward Mikhail Vorobyov:

- The main thing is that we earned the victory! We will work on our mistakes to ensure that we concede less goals in the future.

- SKA are struggling on the powerplay at the moment.

- The opponents are analysing how we compete on the powerplay. We'll try to come up with new combination plays, hopefully our powerplay will improve in our upcoming matches.

- Vityaz used their coach's challenge for your second goal. On the ice, did you think that there was going to be a problem?

- I didn't pay attention to that when shooting the puck. I was simply in awe of the pass given by Danila Moiseev! I did not notice that Dmitrij Jaskin was disturbing the goalkeeper.