Interviews following the U18 victory against Slovakia

After defeating Slovakia 6:3 at the 2019 IIHF U18 World Championship, under 18 Russian national team head coach Vladimir Filatov and forward Arseniy Gritsyuk shared their opinions with the media.

Russia U18 head coach Vladimir Filatov:

- Despite paying a lot of attention to our penalty kill, we conceded three times shorthanded. Vasily Podkolzin and Ilya Nikolaev? They both became tired after spending a lot of time on the ice. A lot of our players struggled after competing on the penalty kill so often. In the next match, we will take on Latvia, and they have a good side which has defeated professional teams in the domestic championship this season. It won't be easy. We're planning on Yaroslav Askarov being the starting goaltender in that game.

Russia U18 forward Arseniy Gritsyuk:

- I think that we started well, the coaches instructed us to apply pressure because the Slovaks are well built physically. It's nice to score a goal, but the main thing is that the team wins. We made mistakes shorthanded which allowed Slovakia to hit the jackpot. We've been preparing for this competition for a long time, and there aren't any weak opponents here.