"In the first match against Dynamo, there were not enough chances to realize"

One of the most high-profile series of the first round of the KHL has started in the KHL playoffs. Dynamo Moscow won 3-1 at home against SKA St. Petersburg in the first match. In addition to the goals, a striking episode of the match was the five-minute dismissal with the score 2-1 of the defender of the St. Petersburg club Andrei Pedan. While he was serving the fine, the judges also gave two more penalty minutes to the army for violating the numerical strength.

Thus, SKA lost the opportunity to equalize for a few minutes, and Alexey Kudashov's team successfully implemented the majority of the "3 on 1", in which Nikita Gusev set the winning point in this match. In an interview with Izvestia, Andrei Pedan appreciated how much this removal affected the game, spoke about the opponent and explained why a not very high seventh place in the regular season for such a team complicates the situation in the playoffs.

— How would you rate the episode with your five-minute deletion? Could you have avoided it?

— You can always avoid it. But I'm probably not in the position to evaluate such episodes — it's more for the judges. They make decisions. Our job is to play hockey and win. We do not discuss the decisions that the judges make.

— Was that the key moment of the match?

— In my opinion, no. We had a lot of chances when we could have thrown the puck into the Dynamo goal and scored, and eventually won. My removal is just one moment in the match. Yes, if he hadn't been there, we wouldn't have given the opponent the opportunity to play in the majority, as a result of which he scored the third goal. But I can't say that the game consists of one moment to reduce the whole result to it.

— What was missing for SKA to win this match?

— The realization of moments. As I said, we had a lot of chances to score the Dynamo goal, but the implementation failed.

— Is there a problem with the game for the majority of SKA, given that Dynamo had a lot of disposals, but your team did not manage to score an extra goal?

— I think there are no problems. Dynamo's goalkeeper played well — we need to find the key to him. And then everything will be much better for us.

— Do you feel that the team is in good enough shape for the playoffs to win this series with Dynamo?

— Yes, we were preparing for the playoffs. I played very well in the last regular season matches of SKA. And the place in the table is just numbers. If you look at our Western Conference, the difference in points scored between the teams is small. We are only seven points behind Dynamo Moscow, which finished second. And that's like four games in the regular season.

— After such a defeat, did you regret that you could not finish above seventh place in the regular season and avoid a series with Diyamo?

— We are determined to win every match. The first match we lost to Dynamo is just the first game of the playoffs. We are preparing further. The series goes up to four wins.

— Did Dynamo surprise you in the first match with something that was not present in their face-to-face matches against SKA in the regular season?

— Dynamo always plays systematically. Kudashov always has such a structured hockey style. I know him, I played with him for a whole season. Therefore, Dynamo did not surprise me in any way. The team is good and skilled. We missed two goals from her in the minority — we need to adjust these details. The series is just beginning, and we believe that the results will only get better for us.