Ivan Nikolishin: “It was difficult for Avangard to oppose the fact that in the third period the opponent took the initiative, but this is not an excuse.”

On Saturday, March 16, Avangard lost to Lokomotiv 1:2 on home ice in the first match of the second round of the KHL championship playoffs. The game was appreciated by the author of the only goal in his composition, forward Ivan Nikolishin.

As the hockey player noted, a little later it will be necessary to figure out why the “railroad workers” managed to seize the initiative in the third period, when they evened the score.

– Good game, almost five periods. It’s a shame we didn’t win. But this is only the first match.

– What happened in the third period? It seemed that Avangard was simply unrecognizable – so he slowed down.

– The opponent took the initiative. It was hard for us to do anything against this. But that’s no excuse. If we had moved the game away from our goal, we would not have given the guests a chance. Tomorrow we will look at why the opponent was able to seize the initiative. Evaluate all mistakes and see what happened. It’s still hard to explain in hot pursuit.

– Are you satisfied with how the team played the first period? After all, he was in fact behind Avangard.

– Yes, he was behind us, we came out well, loaded. This should have continued throughout the match.

– It felt like it was noticeable that in overtime the opponent was already very tired, and in the end that’s why he even fell and lost the puck?..

– Of course, after three periods in the second overtime, anyone will get tired. And we were tired too, but they scored successfully. Therefore, we are preparing for the next match.

– Have you ever had such matches in your career that lasted until the second overtime?

– Yes, this has happened before.

Previously, we outlined the expectations from this series for our team’s head coach Mikhail Kravets.