"You won't be able to match your opponent for the playoffs"

There are less than two weeks left until the end of the KHL regular season. Dynamo Moscow looks like one of the favorites for the Gagarin Cup in March. It is in second place in the Western Conference. And now he has a bright streak of five consecutive wins in regular time, and most of them were won over top rivals.

In an interview with Izvestia, Igor Ozhiganov, the captain of the blue and white team, shared his opinion on the team's recent results, explained why it was impossible to choose opponents for the playoffs, and spoke about the task of achieving a final place in the top 4 of the West based on the results of the regular season, which would allow the first round to begin with home matches.

— What happened in the Dynamo locker room during the second half of the match with Lokomotiv? What led to such a comeback from 1-3?

—Nothing like that. The head coach spoke, told us to start performing as a team, not to pull a blanket over everyone. That's what we did. We acted as a team, fought for the puck on every part of the court and tried to use every opportunity to take someone else's goal in the third period — it worked. Due to this, we won.

— Can the third period performed by Dynamo be called a model that is needed for the playoffs?

— I don't know, I can't say that it's a sample. It is important for us that the whole game is from the first to the last minute, and not in fragments. We show very good hockey in fragments, like in the third period against Lokomotiv. But we have to do this for the whole match.

— Is it important for Dynamo to keep the current second place in the table in the West? Does it make a difference where you enter the playoffs?

— The main thing is to start the playoffs at home. So that the first matches of the first round series will be played on our home ice. It is already more difficult to say from which specific of these places, since the density in the table is now such that it is unclear who will finish the regular season, who can get into the playoffs for whom. Even if someone wants to match their opponent, they won't succeed. This year, everything is so unpredictable that we all probably only find out the opponents at the last moment.

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— So the main thing for you is to finish the regular season in the top 4 conferences?

- yes. The main question is whether we will start the playoffs at home or on the road. That's the difference.

— Even a potential confrontation with SKA in the first round is not annoying if everything remains as it is now, when you are in second place and Peter is in seventh?

— You know, if a team claims something, then it must defeat any opponent. Her psychology should be tuned to this. And if you're choosing someone for yourself, it means you're not confident in your abilities. And it won't end well. Any opponent who makes it to the playoffs is a serious force. Therefore, there is no need to divide the teams into strong and weak ones and especially single out some of them.

— You had an unsuccessful period at the end of February, when you were first defeated at home by Dinamo Minsk (0:5), and then lost to Sochi, the outsider of the West (3:5). How did they get the current winning streak after that?

— We sorted out our unsuccessful games, analyzed the errors. We all got together and began to play even more efficiently and selflessly in every match. Although there were also downturns, as in the first two periods of the match against Lokomotiv, but in the end we showed character in this game in the third period and won. I repeat, the main thing is to constantly show our best hockey if we want to successfully compete in the playoffs.