Severstal punished us for tactical mistakes: Andrey Martemyanov about the loss to Khabarovsk Amur

The Khabarovsk team was unable to close the gap from eighth place in the East

In the first game of the new year, 2024, Amur had an excellent opportunity to get as close as possible to the playoff zone in the East, or even take eighth place, moving up Sibir. To do this, it was necessary that, firstly, Admiral beat the Novosibirsk team, and secondly, Amur beat Severstal. Neither the first nor the second worked out. “Sibir” butchered the “sailors” like a Thai chef cut up a shrimp, but the Cherepovets dealt with “Amur”. Not the best day in the KHL for the Far East.

As for the match in Cherepovets, “Amur” went there ahead of time, on the first of January, but failed to really prepare. In the first period, although the hosts did not shine, they looked better than the guests from Khabarovsk. As a result, we managed to open the scoring in the match by converting the first majority we received. The Khabarovsk team also played with a numerical advantage, but unlike the Cherepovets team, they didn’t spend the best two minutes.

“Amur” received the second puck into their own goal at the very beginning of the second period, already in equal strength. It is worth noting that in both goals there was an element of chance – a ricochet, so Igor Bobkov cannot be blamed for the missed goals. He did everything he could. In the second segment of the game, “Amur” finally woke up and managed to win back one goal, by the way, in the majority. Dmitry Shevchenko scored in the 34th minute, but Yegor Korshkov did everything for this goal.

The Khabarovsk team managed to equalize the score in the 49th minute of the match, again having a numerical advantage on the ice. This time Ivan Mishchenko converted the chance, and Korshkov gave the assist. Then Amur had a great chance to take the lead, but they didn’t score, but the hosts did. The result of the match was 4:2 in favor of Severstal. The Cherepovites managed to get even for defeat last year. “Amur” is again behind the eighth position by 4 points.

“We took a long time to get into the game in the first period. Maybe this is due to the fact that we had a week break. We conceded two goals and went all-in. We began to put more pressure, created enough chances to change the score, but… Our majority worked well today. The opponent is a unique team that plays very quickly in passing. Severstal punished us for tactical mistakes and caught us in the end on a counterattack. Overall an even game. We created enough chances, we should have acted more calmly, and then the match would have turned out differently. In terms of dedication, I have no complaints about the guys. Third missed goal? They scored a good goal for us. We overslept ourselves: we had to take care of the player,” he noted after the match Andrey Martemyanov, head coach of HC Amur.

In its turn Andrey Kozyrev head coach of Severstal admitted that the game went with varying degrees of success and it was very good that his team managed to score points.

Now Amur is flying to Minsk to play with the local Dynamo, the match will take place on January 5, and then returns home to play with a direct competitor for getting into the playoff zone, Novosibirsk Sibir.

Read also: Khabarovsk “Amur” ended the year with a victory over “Neftekhimik”. This was the second match with the Nizhnekamsk team, and this short series brought the “tigers” four points

A stubborn, intense match: Andrey Martemyanov commented on the victory of Khabarovsk “Amur” over “Neftekhimik”. This match had everything – caps on the ice, beautiful goals, and a stubborn fight between the opponents, in which the Khabarovsk team turned out to be stronger

Khabarovsk “Amur” was left without the Caviar Cup, but won against “Admiral” in the final match of the Far Eastern derby. The Khabarovsk team almost missed the victory, but were able to score in the last minutes of the match