SOCHI, Aug 3, Andrey Senchenko. Dynamo Minsk head coach Craig Woodcroft opined that 37-year-old hockey player Nikolai Zherdev, who was taken on trial, did a good job in training, but the goal of the club is to develop Belarusian youth. «Zherdev did a good job training hard with us. We had the option of signing a player who was hungry for performances in the KHL. But you know that the task of our club is the development of the Belarusian youth. We will continue to keep this vector. How does Emelin influence young people? Alexei knows how to win, he is a professional, he works hard and performs at the highest level. The main thing is that we called him for victories, he brings a lot of benefits, «Woodcroft told reporters. Also, the Dynamo coach called the poor implementation of moments one of the reasons for the defeat in the match with SKA St. Petersburg in the pre-season tournament in Sochi (1:4).» In the first part of the match looked and no worse than SKA, and in some moments they played the game. Then they let their foot off the gas pedal, and SKA took advantage of this. We were hit hard by the realization of moments. We created them, but could not implement them. This game is a good lesson for us. I will note the presence of young players in the squad, they emphasized a lot for themselves in today's match,» the coach said.
