Captain and striker “Motorist” Sergei Chirokov answering questions from , explained how the Yekaterinburg team managed to beat the St. Petersburg team SKA during the first match of the second round of the Fonbet Championship qualifiers KHL .
On Sunday, Avtomobilist defeated SKA with a score of 3:2 in the away match of the Gagarin Cup.
— What is the key to Avtomobilist’s success in this game?
“What we were told, what we expected, is what happened on the ice.” SKA is a fast team, there are a lot of skilled and fast guys. We understood that there would be fast hockey. The main thing that didn’t work for us was that in the second period we lost a lot of pucks on the blue line, so we had counterattacks. You have to rest, breathe and correct these nuances. There is a difficult series ahead, we understand that very well. Nothing has been done yet.
— You only received two outs in the entire match, which prevented SKA from playing much in the majority.
— As the first series against Ak Bars showed, eliminations in the playoffs play a big role. We understood that SKA plays well in the majority, they have excellent players. We try not to retire, to work until the end. It’s great that it worked. And we will work on the majority.
— SKA lost its system defender Alexander Nikishin. Did you feel it?
– To be honest, yes. We knew he wouldn’t play from the first matches. I don’t know what’s going on with his health and if he’ll continue. But we focused more on our own actions.
— How big was the challenge when the Avtomobilist managed to cancel Bardakov’s goal, thanks to which the score did not become 2:2?
– The second period was important – we resisted, resisted, endured. It wasn’t easy at times, we were locked into a zone. But everyone played until the end, the second period became key. And in the third, even though we were already playing according to the score, we conceded, then scored. We should have scored before, but it didn’t work. It’s hockey, it happens. Let’s rest and regain our strength. A day later there is another match, ”Shirokov answered questions from a correspondent.
Watch live broadcasts of Gagarin Cup matches on the channel, as well as on the matchtv.ru and sportbox.ru sites.
Source : MatchTV
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