"We are looking for ways out of the current crisis every day"

The Dynamo Hockey Club (Moscow) cannot get out of the crisis that began in mid-December. Of the last 16 matches of the KHL regular season, the blue and white team lost 11, nine of them in regular time. This significantly worsened their position in the standings. If Dynamo confidently held on to the top four of the Western Conference in the first half of the season, now they have dropped to sixth place.

In particular, they missed out on CSKA Moscow, which had been in the bottom half of the conference for a long time, and lost to them on their own court in the last match (2:4). Vyacheslav Kozlov's team is in seventh place in terms of lost points, as Spartak Moscow is two points behind them, but played two fewer matches. In an interview with Izvestia, Dynamo Moscow defender Daniil Pylenkov shared his opinion on the reasons for the team's failures and told how worried he is about the current standings.

— What happened to your team in the match against CSKA?

— It's hard to say in a hurry. It was a tough game. It was double-edged. We had good chances to score the opponent's goal, and they also had a lot of opportunities to shoot the puck at our goal. But we had no luck in the implementation. It was worse for us than for the opponent, although, I repeat, there were a lot of chances. In the end, we see the result — CSKA won.

— Why is it that even after winning matches you can't consolidate your success and you haven't even had two consecutive wins in the last month and a half?

— We are trying to turn this around, we go to every match to win. But so far we are not succeeding. I don't know what the reason is. We work hard at every training session, we do everything during the matches to win. But so far it is not possible to start a series of several consecutive games won. We are trying very hard for the sake of our loved ones, for the sake of the fans. I hope this will bear fruit in the near future and the situation will begin to improve.

— Are there any specific ways to radically improve the situation? For example, to arrange a separate meeting, to have a heart-to-heart conversation within the team in the presence of the coaches or without them at all?

— Every day we try to find ways out of this negative situation. We are constantly talking with the guys — the players within the team discuss with each other the reasons for the failures, trying to understand why the situation is like this and how to get out of it. But, unfortunately, it doesn't work out. I hope it starts to work out in the next match against Severstal.

— After losing to CSKA, Dynamo dropped to sixth place in the Western Conference, although it was in the top four back in early January, which gave it the advantage of its ice in the first round of the playoffs. Is it very stressful to have such a tournament position, or does it make no difference from which place to enter the playoffs?

— You always want to score points in every match and stay as high as possible.

— Does Dynamo have more gaming problems or psychological ones?

— Gaming, of course.

"Just them?"

— All at once. There are many reasons why we can't win games.