There was a heavy and dense silence in the SKA locker room. Everyone was trying to understand what had just happened. The team that almost everyone predicted would have an easy exit to the semifinals ran into a hot team that has changed dramatically since the start of the playoffs and is beating one favorite after another.
Avtomobilist won the series in five games and made history: for the first time it reached the third round of the Gagarin Cup. SKA, where each year sets a single goal: the championship title, ends the season. After the end of the series, “Championship” correspondents spoke with Sergei Tolchinsky, Zakhar Bardakov, Alex Galchenyuk, Arseny Gritsyuk and Pavel Dedunov.
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“There has probably never been a more shocking defeat in my life. “I still have a hard time believing it.”
Sergei Tolchinsky could not believe such a result, but congratulated his opponent on a well-deserved victory and noted that the team was very short of injured players:
— Shock, I don’t understand how this could happen? – Yes, it’s still hard to believe that this is the result.
—Have you ever had a more shocking and unexpected defeat? – No, probably not. I don’t know how long I’ll be gone. It’s hard to evaluate everything now.
— Two quick goals in the second half, it seemed like that was it, now you’re about to fly. – Yes, well, we went ahead 4:2, but maybe at some point we started playing too hard three minutes before the end. Maybe I should have played a little more carefully. But what now? I must say that Avtomobilist deservedly won, they played very well, a systematic team. Well done, congratulations on your victory.
— Was there a turning point in the series? — It is possible that the third game was given away. Although we still qualified for the next game and won. Today we also took the lead. Hold this score, and now it would be 2-3 in the series, we go to Yekaterinburg, and it remains to be seen how the series would have turned out. There was probably no turning point.
— What didn’t work with Avtomobilist? “I think they just made fewer mistakes.”
— The series with Torpedo turned out to be easy, but fatal in the sense that key players were eliminated. – Of course, we really miss the guys. We lost a lot of guys, even the captain. Pashka Dedunov is also an excellent captain, but still Nikishin is the main defender, also Borna, Pedan. All these losses, of course, took their toll.
—What happened at the end, when Vorobyov lay down on the puck? — I didn’t know you could lie down on the puck for 16 seconds. Turns out you can… I wonder, what if he stays like that for a minute? Could you watch for a minute? A strange episode, but these are still the last moments.
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—What did Rotenberg say after the game? – Naturally, everyone is upset. I don’t remember what she said, I just thanked her for the season. Still, everyone tried, there were no indifferent people. We had a great team. In any case, it has been a difficult season, just thank you for your work. I hope we are stronger.
“SKA beat everyone, CSKA in the semifinals. Well, this is good for development, right?
Zakhar Bardakov reacted philosophically to the defeat and found in it advantages for the development of hockey, since this year the semifinals will be played without military teams for the first time in 10 years:
—No one expected it would end like this for SKA. — This happens in hockey, it’s normal. This is actually good for the development of hockey. Everyone is used to SKA and CSKA reaching the semi-finals. Everyone was sick of it, everyone was talking about it at the beginning of the season. Well, is this good for development? For us, of course, not very well, but we lost. Happens.
—If Magnitogorsk is relegated, there will surely be a new champion. – Well, yes, actually, yes, it will be great.
—What didn’t work today and in the series? —Today we played badly as a minority. In the entire series with Avtomobilist we only lost three against five, although we played a lot in the minority. But today they made two attempts and we failed twice. A minority did not work.
And the goals at the beginning and end of periods, like in hockey, are very difficult. It’s hard to start with a slap like that. I think those were the defining moments today.
— When SKA scored two goals in six seconds, I thought there would definitely be a sixth game. – Of course, we wanted this too. We are, so to speak. They already mentally believed in themselves, but the opponent apparently didn’t think about that.
– What happened in the end? — He made a block, no one saw the puck, or he fell on it or hit it somewhere on the equipment. This is a normal hockey moment. If he were in her place, he would do the same. This is a game moment, it can’t even be considered, it’s trifles.
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—How would you rate the season? — It turned out to be wrinkled. At first we lost, then we won. I don’t even know how to describe the season. All this is the first time, no one expected it, no one saw it. This is now history. Good season. This is how it should be.
—What are your next creative plans? – I do not know yet. My contract has expired, I can’t say anything yet. I haven’t thought about anything yet, I still hoped to go further in the playoffs.
“We believed that after a victory we would return to the series”
Alex Galchenyuk, like the rest of the SKA hockey players, believed that the army team could change the course of this series:
— During the match we were winning with a score of 4:2… – Of course, it was our game. I didn’t finish it at all. There is a lot to say about such a close match. The initiative was on our side. With the level of our team they should have taken it away from us, but… Let’s learn the lesson and move on.
—Did “Avtomobilist” suggest something insoluble? – Don’t know. 0-3 were on fire, then one was caught. We believed we needed a win and we would get back into the series. We won one, we catch up today and… Until the end we believed that we would level the series and move on to game seven.
— It seemed that the SKA players got nervous after the first goal they missed. – You can talk a lot, argue a lot, but… This was our game.
“Everything was in our hands. “We ourselves lost”
Pavel Dedunov believes that SKA itself missed the series:
—What are your emotions now? “Everything was in our hands.” We fought and were able to take the lead. My own mistakes led to this result.
—We lost all three games at home. —We missed some moments of the game, a thread of the game. It was necessary to move forward, but this is already an excuse. They themselves made mistakes, they themselves lost. This is our result.
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—To what extent did Avtomobilist himself complicate SKA’s task? “They’re moving forward, which means they were able to do something we couldn’t do.” We couldn’t show our best qualities. Our fault, no one else’s.
—What positive things does the team take away from this series? — It’s good that the team came out and fought even with the score 0-3. Today we left with the same attitude. We lost something in the third period. It seems like something went wrong somewhere.
“Maybe somewhere because of me it was not possible to win”
Arseniy Gritsyuk suggested that the experience played for Avtomobilist and also criticized his own game:
“I feel devastated, like probably everyone else.” He didn’t want to end the season on March 25. Unfortunately, we can’t change anything. They themselves stepped on the rake and failed. We will analyze and think about what we do next.
—Why couldn’t you maintain your advantage? —We made individual mistakes. If we talk about the series, then in Avtomobilist there are many experienced players who have been playing in the KHL for a long time. This is quite old equipment. Somewhere in this calm they took him. Sometimes we flew with the chips drawn, everyone wanted to score. And there are players who have been playing for 10 to 15 years and they catch the puck, get them out of the zone, sit on defense and block 30 to 40 shots. It’s difficult to play against a team like that. They held on and won the series.
—Why couldn’t you take advantage of the advantage of playing at home? — In the playoffs you no longer think about that. Our two games were like the last. They left thinking they couldn’t give them away. I don’t think sand has any effect. The team just didn’t play like they should.
— Today you scored a double, but it still wasn’t enough. — Yes, in February we moved to the SKA Arena and I just scored my first goal here. I don’t know what to connect this to. It’s good that he scored a double, but… Doing it in the last game of the season and losing is very bad. Dissatisfied with my result. Maybe somewhere because of me it was not possible to win. If he had scored more, perhaps the series would have been different.
