Nizhny Novgorod “Torpedo” It is unlikely that he will break through the barrier of the second round of the KHL playoffs this season, says Nikita Filatov, former hockey player of CSKA and Columbus.
Torpedo is fourth in the Western Conference standings with 38 points in 31 matches.
— What do you think about the usual conversations about Torpedo, that the team will decline in the second half of the season, that it will not show anything in the playoffs?
—They said the exact same thing last season. That Torpedo does not have a pre-season, that there will be a “withdrawal”. They said there were a lot of injuries due to poor preparation. Let me remind you how it all ended: Torpedo beat Dynamo and looked very decent in the second round.
This year everything is the same: we started training camp later than everyone else, almost did not participate in pre-season tournaments and practically did not play against KHL teams. Here again, the budget is limited, significantly lower than that of six or seven conference clubs. But basically nothing changes: Torpedo is 3-4 in the West and shows the most beautiful hockey with crazy combinations. The most important thing is that it is the same team that continues to discover young talents. The leading positions are occupied by guys 17-18 years old, and the 20-year-old hockey player, as Igor Larionov recently noted, is already quite experienced. I don’t see any analogues in the league. If anyone isn’t impressed by all these arguments, they simply don’t understand hockey very well.
— Can Torpedo surpass last year’s playoff result?
—If you ask me if I think Torpedo will advance beyond the second round, I will tell you that it is very unlikely. Personally, I will worry and support Torpedo, but there are banal limitations in the form of roster depth and artist level. In the NHL, this is possible because all clubs are as close to each other as possible in terms of budget. And here we are talking about a double difference in the payroll. Obviously, in such a situation it is very difficult to compete. For Torpedo, success will be a repeat of last year’s result. Getting to the second round would be great.
— If you give Larionov the budget of CSKA, SKA or Ak Bars, will he reach the final?
– This has absolutely nothing to do with it. There are many examples where a coach succeeds with young people and a team on a small budget, but with a top club it no longer works. In this case, we can only guess. It will be possible to check when Larionov will lead a club with a serious budget,” Filatov told RB Sport.
Last season, Larionov’s team defeated Dynamo Moscow with a score of 4-2 in the first round of the playoffs, then lost in four matches to SKA Saint Petersburg.
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RB Sport
Source : MatchTV
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