Reaction after playing the Czech Republic at the 2018 World Championship

Russian national team players Kirill Kaprizov, Pavel Datsyuk, Nikita Soshnikov, Pavel Buchnevich and Maxim Shalunov spoke about the 2018 World Championship 3:4 overtime defeat to the Czech Republic.

Russian national team forward Kirill Kaprizov:

- We analysed how the opponents play, and not individual players. Why couldn't we keep a hold on David Krejci and David Pastrnak? We will look at where we went wrong. This was the most difficult and important match of the World Championship so far. After looking back at the match with our coaches, we will be able to say where we made errors.

Russian national team forward Pavel Datsyuk:

- Both teams played well, albeit plenty of mistakes were committed too. Our task is that the entire team plays to win, so if the coaches make some changes to the line combinations, it's for the team's benefit. Nikita Soshnikov has slotted into the team well, it was his first match at the tournament, but he worked hard. We will correct our mistakes.

Russian national team forward Nikita Soshnikov:

- How did the match go for me personally? It was fine. I managed to settle into the match immediately, creating a couple of scoring opportunities for my teammates. In the third period, it was difficult to find chances, neither team wanted to finish the game without any points. I made my first appearance during the middle of the first period. We played excellently today, but it was a cheap fourth goal to concede, we made a poor shift change. With our chances, we have to be more focused.

Russian national team forward Pavel Buchnevich:

- This was our first major test at the tournament. Later on, we will sit down with the coaches and analyse where we went wrong. We have a young team, a lot of the players are participating at their first World Championship. I have seen David Krejci and David Pastrnak play before, they are talented players so they used all of their scoring opportunities. When Nikita Zaitsev gave me a pass in the third period, I decided to shoot because if I had taken a touch, the puck would have got away from me. Next time, I will try to collect the puck before shooting.

Russian national team forward Maxim Shalunov:

- Today, we had a strong opponent playing against us. Hopefully, we will learn from this lesson and we'll draw the correct conclusions. What were we lacking? We didn't crash the net enough and failed to capitalise on our opportunities.

Russian Ice Hockey Federation