On Friday, January 27, Avangard beat Dynamo Capital in the KHL Championship home game 3:2 in overtime. The match was traditionally assessed at the press conference by the team’s head coach Mikhail Kravets. He also noted that the team in a difficult situation at 0-1 “did not lower their wings” and finally succeeded.
The mentor also answered the question of what composition the “hawks” will fly to the Far East. And he estimated the importance of the victory over the “white-blues” for Avangard at 5 points on a five-point scale.
– It turned out to be a difficult match, of course we were under pressure from the previous three defeats. But to a greater extent it was also the fact that the game in these matches was scrambled.
Today, the 4 links showed that we have character, talent and desire, the will to win. Everyone did their job for the team to win.
Yes, it was tough, and we conceded most of the time, but we didn’t lower the wings, we fought until the end and quickly scored goals on the return. Of course, it’s a shame they conceded as the score ended 2-2. Something went wrong. But still, the guys did their job, it brought success.
Naturally, before the trip, this victory will inspire us a lot. And here two very important points have been made.
– Two goals in 15 seconds in the second period – from the side they were unexpected. And how did the bench function and live at that time?
– Indeed, on the one hand, some problems seem to appear to us all the time. On the other hand, we spent a lot of time in the foreign zone, attacked more, won the majority, and in this majority we did not play as we would like.
After conceding a goal, the guys on the bench, it seems to me, rallied even more, made themselves believe in victory and worked even harder.
– How would you rate in more detail the psychological importance of breaking the losing streak and getting such a positive impulse to leave and play there? It seems to me that here it is directly impossible to overestimate this.
– If rated on a five-point system, then such a win is five out of five. Winning always gives hope that we always do everything right. The coaches themselves are working well, the guys are training and playing well, we understand that the players have heard us. We understand what we expect from them. Today was a completely different game compared to the previous ones. Today we saw those guys on the pitch who brought previous wins to Avangard.
– Ivan Miroshnichenko, in a comment in the locker room, has now admitted that he himself did not quite understand that it was he who scored the first goal, and not Zharkov. Like, there was such a crowd on the “patch” that it was hard to figure it out. And you saw him straight away from the bench – that he was the one who stood out?
– Yes, I immediately saw from the bench that it was Volodya Zharkov who threw it, and Miroshnichenko put his stick under the puck. So the wish here is just that – even if he doesn’t look at it, he scores and even thinks he didn’t score here (smile).
– Have you decided on the composition of the team to go to Khabarovsk and Vladivostok?
– I think it will be everyone who played today, no doubt. Defenders Nikita Mikhailov and Mikhail Gulyaev will go, in addition – Alekseev and center forward Semyon Astashevsky. That is 5 attacking triples and 8 defenders.
Earlier we also wrote about how the Omsk team played the first two periods of the match against the Blue and Whites.
