"The guys here are hot, and the goalies in particular."

The hockey players of Torpedo Nizhny Novgorod are locked in the playoff zone of the KHL Western Conference - they are in eighth place. In the last game Igor Larionov's wards defeated their main rival in the fight for the Gagarin Cup - Chinese "Kunlun Red Star" (4:1) and increased the gap to 11 points. Back in late January, Kunlun was not far behind Torpedo, while Nizhny Novgorod was in crisis.

In an interview with Izvestia, Avtozavodets forward Dmitry Kagarlitsky explained how they overcame their problems, stated their desire to move up in the West for the remainder of the regular season, and commented on the recent brawl between Torpedo goalie Ivan Kulbakov and Ak Bars goalie Amir Miftakhov after the game between the teams.

- Was there a special mood for the game, the victory in which actually killed the intrigue in the fight for the playoffs?

- We were preparing for this game very seriously. Basically, we realized that this is a very important match for us. As well as for the opponent. That's why we seriously tuned in for the fight. It's true, we didn't start the game well - we had a bad first period. But in the end we won - that's the most important thing for us. Kunlun has a good team and a good coaching staff. It wasn't the first game we played against them this season and we knew it wouldn't be easy. But after a disappointing first period, we added a little bit, started to play more aggressively and won.

- Why has Torpedo had a winning streak lately? What have we improved on compared to the unsuccessful January period?

- We changed the game a little bit, added. We changed certain aspects of the game in the middle zone and in the defensive zone. And not only in them - we made changes in all the zones, due to which we added to the game. I won't go into details, but there were certain adjustments after the failures. And, as you can see, they have a positive result.

- Were these changes influenced by the reshuffle in the coaching staff in early January, when Eduard Zankovets, who worked with the defenders, was replaced by Igor Ulanov?

- Well, I don't know how exactly this reshuffle affected the changes. Maybe we would have gone for them anyway. In principle, I can say that Zankovets is a good specialist, as well as Ulanov who replaced him. And the changes I'm talking about didn't depend only on the change of one person - it was the decision of the entire coaching staff, which was in good contact with the team and communicated these points.

- Was there a lot of pressure on the team in January, when Kunlun got very close to you?

- We weren't going to stop. And we're not going to stop now - we want to get as high as possible. It's clear that when Kunlun was only three points behind us in January, the situation was very dangerous. We had a bad series of several defeats. We had to turn the situation around. I think we did it. We are moving in the right direction.

- How did you react to the episode after the match with Ak Bars, when Ivan Kulbakov and Amir Miftakhov fought? Have you ever seen goalies having such clashes?

- I have seen a lot of things. In this situation the guys are just hot, they misunderstood each other. After the game everyone made up, shook hands, and the incident was over. It's a working moment, nothing more. Everything is normal, everyone is on good terms. It's just hockey - guys are hot here, and goalies in particular.

- Do you believe you can rise above eighth place in the regular season?

- We're not stopping at anything and we're working to win as often as possible, to have a winning streak and get higher. We were not satisfied with the eighth place all this time. We just had hard periods - now we came out of them. Now we are trying to go higher. On the one hand, we don't pick our opponents for the first round of the playoffs and we're ready to fight for a win with each of them, but we'll still try to finish the regular season as high as possible.