The Russian national team and CSKA forward spoke about the preparation of the national team for the 2022 Olympics and commented on the talks about the importance of winning the 2018 Games.
- We are preparing according to the plan. Now, you could say there is a training period, everyone is introduced to the game system. The work and introductory period are in progress. During the quarantine the guys with the negative tests were skating and keeping fit. Of course, the game mode went a little bit. The task for the near future is to restore it, to get back to the game pace. We need to be patient a little bit, to recover.
It's hard to say if we should have stopped the KHL championship early. No one can say for sure. Everything is spontaneous. In CSKA, for example, 15 people left in a couple of days. Everyone is in the same position; everyone is trying to adapt to the situation.
I was worried that I was not called up for the Channel One Cup, I was concerned about that moment, because it was the last rehearsal before the Olympic training camp. But talk with Sergei Fedorov calmed me down, he assured me that I was in the plans of the national team.
It's hard to say what should be taken from the Pyeongchang experience. New team, new coaching staff. But we should definitely bear in mind that there will be no easy days or passing matches at the Olympics. All teams have equal chances for success from the very beginning and we will have to fight in every game. We should not underestimate our opponents. We must be ready for 100% every day.
And what will change if the Olympic hockey tournament is rescheduled for summer? Would the NHL's decision on the Olympics change? My opinion is we should play when they tell us to. If you think about a possible postponement now, you risk not preparing for the tournament at all. We have to prepare for the next tournament but no one knows how it could have been or what would have been better.
Have you ever heard that the gold in Pyeongchang was not real? No matter whether you win or lose, there will be critics. There are a lot of guys who have a great level of play but they've never played in the NHL. Unfortunately, we have the NHL in hockey and we have the rest of the leagues but not everyone can get there for various reasons. When we won the Olympics in 2018, no one thought it was some fake tournament. Try telling the person who broke his shoulder in the finals that he won the wrong gold.
