Anvar Gatiyatulin: game plan worked to perfection

Anvar Gatiyatulin, Traktor head coach:
Tonight, the game plan worked to perfection. This was our fourth game in a week, and we were legitimately concerned about our physical shape. Two goals was enough to get this win. As always, I thank my players for their guts and desire to win.

Craig Woodcroft, Dinamo Minsk head coach:
First off, congratulations to Anvar and his team. It was a good road game; they put us to sleep. I thought our team came out and executed the game plan. We controlled the vast majority of the game, created a lot, did not give up a lot, but at the end of the day, we could not find a way to solve the goaltender puzzle – he had a good game tonight for them. In games like this, it’s on us to figure out ways to get pucks pas the goalie; there is a multitude of ways to do it, we’ve talked a lot about it, but we just didn’t have an answer tonight. I thought for the most part of the game the team was good. The one area where we can be a little bit more polished is when we create great scoring opportunities in great scoring areas, we actually should take advantage of it instead of making that extra move. I think we did a lot of this tonight. Thank you.

Question to Gatiyatulin: Head coaches often say that their teams play their own hockey, without looking at their opponents’ style of hockey. Tonight, many were under the impression that you deliberately chose to play second fiddle.
Gatiyatulin: Yes, it’s true. We know that Dinamo is a fast and attack-oriented team. Once again, we played four games in the last week, and we were concerned with the shape that we were in. So, we chose to use counterattacks and focus on the defense, and it worked out great.

Question to Woodcroft: An interesting observation – you repeated a line only once in the last ten minutes of the game. Was that a strategic move in order to confuse the opponents?
Woodcroft: Yeah, for sure, we were trying to create a spark. We were trying to find something that could get us over the edge there.

Question to Woodcroft: After the fight, Dinamo had two minutes of shorthanded play, and this led to a Traktor goal. What do you think about the fights that have negative impact on the result?
Woodcroft: First of all, there is no connection to what you just said to a goal against. I know where you are going with that, and you’re completely wrong. What’s my attitude towards players fighting? Sometimes it happens in hockey, and it’s like I said before – if someone wants to mess with us, we’re ready to stand up and protect ourselves. You mess with one of us – you mess with all. And for your information – it was a different penalty that led to a goal.

Question to Woodcroft: Could the emotional drain be the reason for tonight’s loss?
Woodcroft: If that’s what you think, that’s what you think. It was a new game, a new day, new three points that we were fighting for. If you want to use that as an excuse, you are free to do it, but that is not how we operate. We didn’t figure out how to get a goal past the goalie. We played a good game; we just could not answer the goalie. That’s all on us; we’ll fix it.

Question to Woodcroft: Can you comment on the rehab of Sergei Kostitsyn? When will he be back?
Woodcroft: I have no new information regarding Sergei. He’s got a lower body injury.