"We need to increase hockey anger, aggression and the fight for neutral pucks"

On March 26, the first matches of the four series of the first round of the playoffs will be held. In one of them, Dinamo Minsk will host CSKA Moscow on its ice. The Belarusian club unexpectedly outperformed the Army team in the regular season, taking fourth place in the Western Conference and gaining the advantage of its site.

In an interview with Izvestia, CSKA striker Prokhor Poltapov appreciated the past regular season, explained the reasons for the poor results, spoke about the impact of the injury to his teammate Vitaly Abramov, who was out until the end of the season in the winter, and also shared his opinion on what is needed to win the series over Dinamo Minsk.

— How would you rate your game on a ten-point scale?

— Your game is probably a seven. It's better than it was last season. But it was possible to perform even more strongly now.

— How would you rate the results of CSKA?

— We should have been higher. We play in a club that is always fighting for the top places.

— Should they have been higher, even taking into account the restructuring that took place in the offseason and in the first half of this season, when most of the players left, under whom CSKA dominated the KHL in 2017-2023?

- yes.

— What prevented you from being taller?

— What you said. The team is new, the players are still getting used to each other a little bit. There is a moment of misunderstanding. After all, the year before last, that champion team was already old, worn out and worn out. By that time, everyone had been playing with each other for a long time, they knew who was playing how. Therefore, there were no such difficulties as this season.

— Your attacking trio with Vitaly Abramov and Maxim Sorkin was very productive and, perhaps, the most striking in the first half of the championship. How did you survive the fact that Abramov was out for the rest of the season in winter?

— It's not like we survived the moment... It happens in sports, and you shouldn't focus on one player. Yes, Abramov and I had a good bond, good chemistry — we understood each other. But were Max and I supposed to stop playing when Vitalik got injured? No, they continued to work. We understood that everything was in our hands. Moreover, Sorych and I continued to play together — it was just necessary to put someone third to us.

— Do you feel that your team has stabilized by the time of the playoffs?

— To be honest, I can't answer this question just like that.

— In the regular season, you lost all four face-to-face matches to Dinamo Minsk. What needs to be improved to fix this already in the playoffs?

— In hockey anger, aggression, the struggle for neutral pucks.

— Do you have any idea why Minsk began to win so often after the New Year that it rose from seventh place to fourth, including ahead of CSKA?

— They just want more.

— So the mood will be the main thing in the upcoming episode?

- yes.