Press-conference

During the press conference Oleg Kurin the Head Coach of Razan Team said he was pleased with the his players played in the second and third periods.
 
- The beginning was failed. We missed four goals in 10 minutes, which were results of our mistakes, rejects and technical penalties. In the second period the players started playing better, the game became equal, the shots were stopped. Although there was a threat to our net, but Dima Yakovlev played very well. In the second period we had a couple absolute situations. If only they had been able to score, the game might have been played better and possibly we would have won? In the third period we tried to do something, but our lack of strong players, we could do nothing. But we should give proper respect to “Donbass” – it is a powerful team. I appreciate the guys they tried their best and played with a desire.

- What is your opinion concerning new players?
 
- If you mean the last ones, we have already left him. Dubovicskiy appeared, played today, I liked him on the ice. Akimov hasn’t shown the expected game yet. We don’t have other plans. We signed everybody we could. Mostly we added the players who won’t make a substantial contribution, but we have four parts now.
 
- How would you define Ukrainian Shamil Ramazanov?
 
- I like his attitude towards his play, not everybody has it. He works, does everything he can. He started in another part, but now we can view him as leading players of the club. Generally speaking he is gonna be a great part of the team.
 
- Weren’t you tempted to change the goalkeeper during the score 0:4?
 
- Zhelovhuk joined us during the season; Yakovlev was from the very beginning. As a matter of fact we had. I have known Yakovlev for many years; we have mutual respect– if he feels at a loss, he will leave the ice by himself. There were a couple of games where I did it myself, and in some games he left himself. If he had told me that we wanted to be changed during the break, I would have agreed with him. I consider Yakovlev to be experienced goalkeeper and I trust him. Not all the missed goals were the results of his mistakes, and anyway he played decentlyfor two periods.
 
- Did you have the desire to take a risk at the last minutes?
 
- I wanted but we couldn’t catch up in the opponent zone. We didn’t have opportunity.
 
- What was the reason of so many penalties in the first period?
 
We told our players that if we lost in moving the puck, we would lose in everything. We started very timidly. We didn’t have enough emotions, and our opponent moved very quickly, that is why we had penalties.
 
After the game against Razan the HC Donbass Head Coach Aleksandr Kulikov shared his opinion about the game and last events in the team.
 
- We started the first period excellently, stopped 5 shots on goal and foresaw the end of the game. After that we considered that everything was over and we would have the easy victory, but ice hockey doesn’t forgive mistakes like this. One should play each 60 minutes of game time. Than we had second thoughts, but opponent goalkeeper took advantages of it. But the reserved power we made during the first period was enough to gain the maximum points in this game and continue preparation for play-offs.
 
- Varlamov didn’t play in the third period. Is he ok?
 
- He got a small injury. We decided to sit him a little bit, because we will have playoff games and it was no sense playing with injured knee. We have a kind of reserved endurance which allowes us to make experiments, so if the leading players gets a minor injury, doctors advise to give them possibility to rest. Varlamov went on the ice, tried a little bit and came back to the bench. The same was with Egiv. That’s why we chose the game of three chains. Gladkih changed Varlamov, we had another changes.
 
- Has your team coped with such a difficult period that you have before?
 
- We spent last three days practicing physically, so last days the players look tired. We had four days off of the ice. Moreover we have many injured players, but we hope Dubrovin and Tatarinov will play soon. We have the program we follow. I have already told about it before.
 
HC Donbass press-service