"Radulov, thank God, showed his full level and class"

The KHL playoff finals will start on May 11. The current Gagarin Cup winner, Lokomotiv Yaroslavl, will face Ak Bars Kazan. This series, like all the others, will last up to four wins by one of the teams and can stretch up to seven games. This is exactly how the Railwaymen passed the Omsk Avangard in the semifinals, knocking it out of the playoffs for the second year in a row following the results of the second overtime of the seventh match. However, this time the Yaroslavl team performed a particularly incredible feat. They lost the series 1:3, and Omsk could have earned their way to the finals in the fifth meeting. But Lokomotiv won it 4-0 at home. Then, in the sixth match, they lost 0-2 away until the last minute of regular time, but Maxim Shalunov equalized with goals 33 and 11 seconds before the siren and postponed the vacation for Yaroslavl.

As a result, his team won that game thanks to a goal in the middle of the second overtime (3:2) and moved the series to the seventh match. In it, Avangard also led by two goals in regular time — 3:1. But Lokomotiv was able to win back again and scored the winning goal again in the middle of the second overtime, winning 4-3 in the last match and in the series. Striker Egor Surin equalized the score in the third period of the seventh match. In an interview with Izvestia, he told how Lokomotiv saved the series, what role the main star of the team, Alexander Radulov, played in this success and what to expect from the finale.

— How do you explain what your team has managed to do in this series, especially in the last two matches?

— We won the games, what can I say. We won the matches, showed character, and fulfilled the coach's instructions. I do not know what to add or how to explain it (smiles). This is a story that needs to be properly digested and the right conclusions drawn from it. Enjoy this success and properly prepare for the final episode, cool your head.

— Is it hard to recover after spending nine periods in two days, taking into account all overtimes?

— I do not know. Perhaps this has some effect on physical activity. But you can't even imagine what's going on in your head — there's no fatigue. I can even say that Oleg Nikolaevich Tauber, the head coach of the Lokomotiv youth team, told me. He said that everything goes out of my head. If you tell yourself in your head that you're tired, then you're really tired. And if you're fresh in the head, then everything's fine.

— You already know Alexander Radulov well as a player, since you won the last Gagarin Cup with him. But now he surprised you when, at the end of the sixth match, in a desperate situation, he made two assists for Shalunov?

— Everyone was in their place. Alexander Valerievich, thank God, showed his full level and class in that game at the right moment. The fact that he did this for us shows once again that he is a true team leader who pulls us along. And all the guys were fighting for each other. So this victory is a credit to everyone. But thanks a lot to Radulov, too.

— What is the difference between this victory over Avangard in the second overtime of the seventh match under current head coach Bob Hartley and last year's victory under his predecessor Igor Nikitin?

— A question with an asterisk. After all, every coach is a chef who has his own recipes. In this series with Omsk, to be honest, we have failed the beginning. And I had to pull myself out of this situation. We did it. And this is in the tradition of Yaroslavl. I've been here a long time, and I know from school how we create problems for ourselves first, then get out of them. And this time we were more lucky.

— What do you expect from the final with Ak Bars?

— This is the next stage, the next round against a strong team. If this opponent has reached the finals, then he is strong.