Head coach of Torpedo Igor Larionov explained the absence of a defender in the Nizhny Novgorod hockey club Anton Silaeva .
On Sunday, the 17-year-old hockey player was not included in the lineup “Torpedo” for the Fonbet KHL championship match with Severstal, which ended in the defeat of the Nizhny Novgorod team with a score of 2:3.
— What motivated the decision to send Silaev home?
— I’ll explain to you: the idea was much earlier, after 30-40 matches. He dominated defenders who were older than him, and for a 17-year-old boy, carrying such a burden on himself took its toll, so we gradually began to reduce his playing time. When the The draft hearings started rolling in, the press attention… So much happened in one year, and he was only 17 years old. He has played 50 matches, which is a lot, and he has not played 1h45 per match, he is serious.
It’s time to give him the opportunity to go there, to stay at home, to read books, to prepare for an exam at school: he’s still a schoolboy, so you know. He had an exam on the 7th, so they wished him to pass with flying colors and come to the gym to work on his bike. February 8 is practice – and you need to be ready to play. Here it is very important to find an opportunity for the boy to still rest, but he completed the task assigned to him. The assignment was a video we showed him of the play of some very good defensemen in the National Hockey League. So that he can see and understand that there are certain things that you can always learn, whether you are 17 or 33 years old. I think he will come back even stronger,” Larionov said according to the club’s press service.
This season marks Silaev’s debut in the KHL. In 55 regular season matches, he scored 11 (3+8) points with a utility indicator of “-7”.
Watch live broadcasts of Fonbet matches of the KHL championship 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.
