"The KHL playoffs are the juice, the celebration, the best time in hockey"

The playoffs are starting in the Kontinental Hockey League (KHL). One of the most intriguing series of the first round in the East will be the confrontation between Ak Bars Kazan and Traktor Chelyabinsk, last year's finalist of the Gagarin Cup. This match will be special for Kazan defender Ilya Karpukhin, a native of Chelyabinsk and a Traktor graduate, for whom he played until December 2024.

Last summer, the 27-year-old hockey player left St. Petersburg SKA after a change of leadership — the decision of head coach Igor Larionov then remained without public explanation. It is noteworthy that in the last round of the regular season, the current Karpukhin club indirectly influenced the tournament fate of the army team: Ak Bars, which had already secured third place in the East, beat Dynamo Moscow (7-5), and as a result, SKA received one of the most uncomfortable opponents in the first round.

In an interview with Izvestia, Karpukhin spoke about Ak Bars' attitude before the playoffs, assessed the team's readiness for decisive matches and shared his expectations from the series against the club where his career began.

— Was your attitude towards the match with Dynamo influenced by the fact that as a result of this victory SKA got the most difficult of those opponents in the first round that they could get into? Would you like to make life difficult for a club that didn't part with you very nicely in the offseason?

— To be honest, I have a lot to think about. So that was the last thing I thought about (smiles).

— How would you rate Ak Bars' readiness for the playoffs?

— This is a question that needs to be asked of our coaching staff. But personally, I think we have a great squad, a great team. We have strong guys, a lot of skilled and experienced players. That's why I think we're 100% ready for the playoffs. We started talking about the playoffs two months ago. Even then, they started saying that it was time to start, that there was nothing more for us, that nothing would change for us in the regular season. We knew it clearly and we were heading for the playoffs. We said in advance that with an eye to the playoffs, we need to change our game, shift the focus from our personal achievements, our points and bonuses to the team result. We were slowly moving on to this. And more and more it was in the locker room, when first one player switched to this mode, then another, then eventually all pulled up together. So we're ready for the playoffs. Nothing much will change for us anymore. Our game won't change, except that the last match against Dynamo and the score 7-5 should be taken out of the brackets. In general, we have everything ready.

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— Does the episode with your native Tractor have a special meaning for you?

— The playoffs are always a special subtext. This is the juice, the celebration, the best time in hockey that everyone is waiting for. Especially for me, because going to Chelyabinsk will have a special emotional background. I know how sick people in the city are, and the team can get a boost from the fans. The fans are pushing people forward there. But even here in Kazan, people get sick well. So it's going to be a very interesting series — one of the best in the upcoming first round.