Friendly match. SKA - Avtomobilist. Press-conference
HC Avtomobilist Yekaterinburg head coach Nikolai Zavarukhin:
- I congratulate SKA with their victory. We can see that they are preparing for the KHL Gagarin Cup playoffs, a tournament which will take place without us this year, unfortunately. However, it's good that at least we have these games, otherwise we would be without matches for eight months. We lost out in terms of movement during the opening stages, although we did have chances. When you can't convert your opportunities, the opponents will make use of their chances to score. We were more aggressive in the third stanza, but we conceded goals on the counter-attack.
- Your forward Sergei Shumakov received an injury. How does he feel? Are games like this needed if players are just going to get injured?
- We need matches, eight months without ice hockey is a lot of time. Hopefully, his injury isn't serious, the puck hit him.
HC SKA head coach Roman Rotenberg:
- It was a good match, and we hadn't played for quite a while. The guys have engaged in tough training camps. We have things to work on.
- How are you preparing for the first round of the KHL playoffs?
- We've already been preparing for the playoffs over the course of the past month. We are taking it from match to match. We will have a team meeting tomorrow, and then we will compete in two more games. All of our efforts are aimed towards getting the players at peak form for the playoffs.
- SKA system teams earned three victories today, while teenage forward Matvei Michkov tallied his 100th MHL point.
- Michkov is progressing really well, this is important for us. We have a good system of developing young players in our club. By the way, a lot of our younger players made their playoff debut with SKA-Neva in the VHL this evening and tallied the win. This is wonderful news for our system.
- When will the players who participated at the 2022 Olympic Games be on the ice for SKA again?
- We are planning for some of them to participate in Thursday's game against Avtomobilist. They need time to recover, we have the experience of 2018 to go by when lots of our players, coaches and staff members were at the Olympics. I think that all of them will play against Torpedo Nizhny Novgorod on Saturday. Furthermore, I want to thank the fans at the Ice Palace today, we really appreciate their support! Our advantage in the playoffs is our supporters.