Press Conference «Neftekhimik – Avtomobilist» 09/11/2023

Press Conference «Neftekhimik – Avtomobilist» 09/11/2023

Oleg Leontyev, the head coach of HC Neftekhimik:

– I want to congratulate our team and fans on this victory! All the guys did a great job. We are a close-knit team. Our penalty killing unit played great again high level power play units of Avtomobilist. Emil Garipov made big saves and kept us in the game.

– In the third period, Avtomobilist outshot Neftekhimik 3:13. Did the team try to play defensively in order to keep a one-goal advantage?

– I did not have time to look at the statistics of the third period, perhaps the opponent wanted to score. We had to put a lot of effort into defensive play and try to counterattack.

– Young defenseman Islam Gainullin played his second game of the season. How would you rate the way he played?

– Like I said before, all our guys from Reaktor and Izhevsk have a great opportunity to play at the high level. The doors to our team are always open. He played well in Izhevsk and now he is here. The guy is talented.

– Zhukenov played against his former team.

– Dima (Dmitry Zhukenov) always tries to do his best. This always happens against your former team. You need to play against any team at a high level.

Nikolai Zavarukhin, the head coach of HC Avtomobilist:

– We had a good start, we had good chances to score goals. The opposing goaltender played well. We had too much passes. We just needed to score. In the third period we had power play opportunities. You cannot win without scoring goals. One more goal was not enough for us today. We must give credit to the opposing goaltender, he played very well.