General Director of Vityaz Igor Varitsky in an interview with explained why the club fought well in the playoffs last season, and is now in last place in the KHL and receives a score of 1 :9 from CSKA.
On Tuesday, the first coaching resignation took place in the KHL – Vityaz said goodbye to Alexander Zavyalov, who only started working as head coach this season.
But it turns out it didn’t work. 0:7 from Dynamo Minsk and 1:9 from CSKA did not lead to optimistic thoughts at all. Following new leads, I called the general manager of the club…
From this interview with Igor Varitsky, you will learn:
“Zavialov himself resigned – we could have left him”
— 1:9 from CSKA was the straw that broke the camel’s back? Or did this lead to you changing coach Alexander Zavyalov?
“But we didn’t fire him and the head coach still had credibility. But in the morning he himself resigned during a team meeting. Without this decision, he might have stayed.
— How strong was Zavyalov when you replaced him with Vyacheslav Butsaev? A year ago, Vityaz fought to a draw with Lokomotiv in the first round, but now they are last in the championship.
“It’s not just the head coach’s fault to blame him for everything. The whole team is to blame and the players need to ask themselves the question. But we saw how Zavyalov worked as an assistant – he did a lot of menial work, which resulted in last year’s result. So we decided to try to support him in the new season. But it turned out as you see.
— Is interim head coach Alexei Tertyshny a permanent candidate? Or are you looking for someone else?
— The next matches will show everything. It is difficult to say anything while drawing conclusions. But Tertyshny will lead our team in tomorrow’s home match against Kunlun.
I repeat, we were not looking for a replacement for Zavyalov. We thank Alexander Vasilyevich for his work, but his decision today surprised us.
— What about the rumors that Dmitry Ryabykin could direct Vityaz?
— Maybe it’s because Riabykin is one of the available coaches? Journalists like to make assumptions and weigh options. I think Ryabykin last came to Balashikha when Avangard played here. And we didn’t negotiate with him.
— Explain, after all, why Vityaz fired coach Butsaev after last season? Everything was going well for him.
“We made this decision considering that we needed to take a different path. It was the club’s initiative, we did not renew the contract. We decided to try something new due to changes in the team. Many young people came to see us.
– You missed the bird in your hands while chasing the pie in the sky. Butsaev got you into the playoffs. But as I see it, “Vityaz” wants to go beyond the first round, so changes are necessary. But now they haven’t yielded anything good.
“Now that it’s happened, we can talk about it.” But in the spring, we had a lot of other thoughts related to significant roster rotation.
“Barack’s stats are low, but let’s wait”
— Vityaz’s budget even increased from 305 to 348 million rubles per season. The composition hasn’t gotten worse, has it?
– But we have to ask the players. After having a successful season and signing new contracts, someone has probably entered their comfort zone. Unfortunately, it happens. It depends individually on the psychology of each hockey player. Someone has earned one ruble and wants to earn two. And some are content with what they have and stagnate.
— What happened to your best defender Jeremy Roy? He was +22 last season, and now his utility is already -11.
“This is not a deterioration, but a problem across our team.” It affects him too. Jérémie plays a lot and we spend a lot of time on defense. When we lose these matches, he has negative points, like everyone else. But Roy is a very good defender.
— “Vityaz” is not the worst club in the KHL in terms of special teams, and the majority of them are generally decent. Better than Lada, Lokomotiv, Magnitogorsk, Avtomobilist, Traktor, SKA…
“You are one of the few who see that we have a good majority.” Although they say here that the assistants from Vityaz headquarters are weak. Our problem is to play with the same strength. This is where the team’s result comes from.
“It’s rare to see that none of the defenders have yet scored a single goal. Why is this happening to you?
— Because we don’t play much on offense. It all comes down to defense. And when it comes to the majority, only the attackers score. But I hope everything gets better.
— “Vityaz” has always been famous for its powerful legionnaires. Okay, Scott Wilson is injured and hasn’t played a single game this season…
“We hope he comes back soon.”
– But you were wrong with Derek Barack. Only 4 (1+3) points in 13 matches with an advantage of -10. Very weak.
— If you compare him to Justin Danforth, who scored 55 (23+32) points in 58 games last season, yes, you were wrong. But let’s wait until Wilson comes out. In the summer, during preparatory matches, he and Barak got along well. There was chemistry and they looked great.
Yes, Barak has bad stats for a foreign player. But unlike some hockey players, he is not indifferent. He fights, tries, despite his small size, gives himself to the game until the end. Even in yesterday’s match against the mighty CSKA he looked good. He has a lot of chances, but is unlucky with an execution somewhere. I hope Baraka breaks through. But the fact that he is not indifferent is worth a lot. He can serve as an example to our other players.
“We still have hope of reaching the playoffs”
— How does the situation of injured hockey players affect Vityaz? Officially, four forwards left the team – Vladislav Tsitsyura, Scott Wilson, Vitaly Popov and Egor Zubov.
— Add to that that attackers Igor Ugolnikov, Ivan Yezhov and Vladimir Galuzin were injured. These are the key players. Of course, that had an impact, given that we don’t have as much depth in the squad. And here we immediately have minus seven attackers.
We didn’t want to take anyone who is currently on the market without a contract. Just for quantity? It’s not correct. I believe in the players we have. The most important thing is that they also believe in themselves.
I hope that when all hockey players are taken off the injured list, we will come together. But you yourself understand that Wilson and Tsitsyura are top 6 players, Popov closes the minority, our captain Galuzin was absent for two weeks. Yezhov, who decides a lot under the gate, missed a whole month… These are not complaints, but an understanding of the situation.
Additionally, the number of foreign players has decreased. There were three of them – one was injured, the other is still adapting. And immediately there is a serious withdrawal.
— Vityaz did not achieve any victory in regulation time. But the playoff zone is only seven points away. Do you think the situation can be improved?
– Of course we have hope. Everything is in our hands. The impossible does not exist. The main thing now is to achieve the first victory, build on it and move forward step by step.
— Was it correct to move Vityaz from Podolsk to Balashikha? What’s going on with your fan base?
— To have good attendance, you have to show good results. At the same time, have additional funds to attract fans to the stands. We are already doing this by every means possible and impossible. But I firmly believe that we need strong team results. We made the playoffs that year and the attendance was impressive.
— Why does the Podolsk children’s hockey school no longer work with Vityaz, but with Torpedo?
“On our side, an agreement was signed and it was on the table of the management of the Podolsk school. But they decided not to renew the contract with us. Maybe they weren’t happy with the financial terms or something else. The cooperation agreement suited us.
They have an independent legal entity. As a free agent, they decided to work with Torpedo. What can we do? Make them rich by giving them 50 million rubles for the season, as they wrote? But I don’t think that’s how hockey schools are funded – maybe only on the big teams. But we didn’t have such an opportunity.
Over the years, everyone liked it. The money was found in other positions. If anyone doesn’t know: when a school has an agreement with a club, it receives a large financial subsidy from the KHL. And when a club sells hockey players to the school, all the profits go to the school. We didn’t take a cent for ourselves.
Well, that’s how it is. They made this decision completely independently. We couldn’t do anything here.
Watch KHL matches on the channels of the Match holding company, as well as on the sites matchtv.ru and sportbox.ru.
Source : MatchTV
I’m Emma Smith, a dedicated journalist and avid storyteller. I have been writing for news websites for the past 5 years, reporting on hockey news and delivering in-depth analysis of the sport. In my current role as Author at Athletistic, I write about hockey events from around the world to keep followers up-to-date with what’s happening in the sport.
