Mikhail Kravets: “Avangard played well, but, of course, I’m dissatisfied with the result”

Omsk hockey players in the KHL championship match on December 19 played 0:4 at home against Ak Bars. The meeting was appreciated by Avangard head coach Mikhail Kravets.

Among other things, the coach said this: for the future, we need to conclude that the matter should simply not be brought to a situation where the match needs to be saved from a score of 0:2.

– Of course, we are unhappy with the result, especially that we didn’t score anything. They showed a good game, except that the execution of the shots let us down.

A lot of chances were created, including the majority. And there were many one-to-one goals, where the goalkeeper helped out the opponent. We ourselves missed two counterattacks. At the same time, we won in terms of shots and made more blocks.

But what’s important is that we probably need to be patient and prove everything in the next game. This match, I repeat, was not bad. It’s not that Ak Bars is inconvenient for us, but rather just a very strong opponent.

– Today Anton Kovalev played the first match, how would you rate him?

– I played well, I just wish there was more time. But this is how the story turned out: there were a lot of deletions, he sat on the bench somewhere, although he played his shifts with dignity, in my opinion. The shift was especially striking when he ran towards the opponent’s goal and could even score there. Pretty good for a first game.

– As for the total number of deletions for both teams, how many of them do you think were such that they could not have been allowed?

– Regarding deletions, it’s always more a question for the judges, but, of course, we could have avoided some penalties and simply did not receive them. This is certain.

– What needs to be taken into account, what conclusions for the future can be drawn from the game at the end, when we stormed with six players, but didn’t score and conceded twice?

– The main thing is that there is simply no need to allow such a situation to happen, to score in the first period on the power play, in one-to-one situations, as was the case in the second period. That’s all. And then you don’t have to pull out the game. Of course, more often we manage to pull it out in such cases, but we must understand that this cannot happen every time. All the same, the opponent will put the finishing touches if he wins, and at the same time he is trained.

The coach also answered a question about Igor Martynov – there was news that he was injured at the Channel One Cup as part of the Belarusian national team and was out for a long time. But in fact, he only has a bruise, and already in the game with Sochi he can appear in the lineup.

Previously we wrote how Kravets appreciated meeting with Barys on December 5th.