The Salavat Yulaev Head coach spoke about preseason training and rated first days of working with Vincent Riendeau.

Salavat Yulaev head coach Tomi Lamsa:

-How do you estimate physical condition of the players now?

-We practice a lot; this is the main time of the season. So many games. Now we need to do all this hard work with physical condition. Our conditional coach Matias Sarvela does great job with the guys. On the ice of course a lot of battling and a lot of skating, things like that.

- What tasks do you set for the preseason training?

-We focus a lot on our defensive playing. We need to find next level for our defense. We need to play more aggressive and more active. It is starts from individual level, as a coach I need to take next level, when we have stronger units we will have stronger team.

- We have got some new players.  Some words about them.

-It is only first week on the ice… Let`s see first game. But atmosphere is great in the team. I think we have a really strong team. 

-Mostly all of the main players remained in the team. Should we expect any changes in the way of playing?

- Not really. I think we played good hockey, with such a hockey we can win. Of course we need to adjust a lit bit, you need to see what kind of team you have, what kind of players. So basically we want to go have more aggressive defense. We need to steal puck faster so we can go with all our strength, because we have skillful players. 

- The team has a new goalie coach. What can you say about first days of working with him?

-Vincent is a great guy. We all can see that he is professional and I think the goalies have great atmosphere that is a really good thing and they work hard.