Reaction following the Russia - Stars and the VHL match

The two respective head coaches shared their opinions following the match between Russia 25 and the Stars and VHL at the Channel One Cup in Saint Petersburg.

Russia 25 head coach Roman Rotenberg:

- This was a tough game for our guys, but they showed character to earn the victory. I liked how we competed in the third period, we finally managed to start scoring our goals. Thank you to everyone who either attended the Ice Palace this evening or watched on television. Why didn't Maxim Shabanov play after the second stanza? Maxim doesn't have international experience, there wasn't a lot of space available on the ice. As you probably noticed, we made changes to all of our lines in the third frame. Nonetheless, I would like to thank all of our players for this game, everyone tried their best for the benefit of the team. Vasily Atanasov seemed to disappear? The opponents were very compact against him. We'll now prepare to face Belarus on Saturday, they have a really strong squad for this tournament with lots of leading KHL players.

Stars and VHL head coach Nikolai Voevodin:

- Our players gave everything until the final second of the match. We had enough opportunities to score more goals, especially after we pulled the goalkeeper in favour of the extra skater. Yes, of course the opponents boast the stronger players, but our guys performed well. Why did we swap Yegor Nazarov for Sergei Murashov in the third frame? Nazarov was fantastic during the opening two periods, but after Russia's quickfire goals we needed to somehow change the flow of play.