Interviews after losing to Sweden at the 2018 World Championship

Pavel Datsyuk, Nikita Gusev, Vladislav Gavrikov and Nikita Zaitsev spoke following the 1:3 defeat to Sweden at the 2018 World Championship in Denmark.

Russian national team forward Pavel Datsyuk:

- No one wanted to lose, but this is ice hockey. The Swedes played really well, but now we will play against Canada, it's a match which we need now and not later on in the competition. We needed to play like we did in the third period for the entire 60 minutes. Sweden skated really well and pressed us, we needed to take advantage of the space which became available.

Russian national team forward Nikita Gusev:

- I don't think it's a problem that we lost both games against strong opponents, it was a good match today. On the powerplay, we needed to take advantage of the opportunities which we created. My chances? I had to score. It's good that we finished in second place of Group A, but it's hard to win when you only score one goal. Let's see what happens against Canada.

Russian national team defenseman Vladislav Gavrikov:

- The opponents have real quality, it wasn't easy to create scoring chances after missing opportunities on the powerplay. Both teams wanted to win, so there were some fights. We will draw conclusions from this match and learn our lesson.

Russian national team defenseman Nikita Zaitsev:

- Sweden are a good team which punished us for our mistakes. We can beat Canada in the quarter-final, this tournament has proven that any team can beat another. We'll have a day to rest.

Russian Ice Hockey Federation