MOSCOW, November 10, Oleg Bogatov. Conclusions about the quality of work the head coach of St. Petersburg SKA Roman Rotenberg should be done based on the results of the end of the hockey season, you should not pay attention to the opinions of individual fans about the need to dismiss the specialist from this post, said Olympic champion Alexander Pashkov.
On Thursday, at the army team’s home match with Traktor Chelyabinsk, a banner “The system is not working” was hung on the SKA fans’ stand. Rotenberg at the post-match press conference called this a provocation. After 27 matches of the regular season of the Kontinental Hockey League (KHL), the St. Petersburg team is in eighth place in the Western Conference standings. The gap from the zone of exclusion from the playoffs is two points.
“I think that responsibility must be shared: there is a coach and there is the management of the club,” said Pashkov. “I would like to remind you that during the pre-season period there were big changes in the team. I don’t think that Roman Rotenberg alone resolved these issues, There is also a leadership. I believe that we need to look for the reasons for the SKA team’s unsuccessful performance in the championship. And as for his qualities as a coach, I believe that conclusions should be drawn after the season, when the final result will be known. Conclusions are always drawn based on the results of the season , this is what we have to wait for.»
«Experts, of course, can express some critical comments on the preparation of the team and so on. As for the fans, it is not their business to demand something in the direction of changing the coach. Completely different people with completely different interests, with different understandings of hockey and the club's management. And it seems to me that it is not worth paying attention to such calls. This is the so-called foam, which always forms during a period when a team or individual athletes somehow, perhaps, reduce athletic performance . This could be for various reasons, we need to survive this moment and wait for the crisis to emerge,” the expert added.
Before the end of the KHL regular season, SKA will have to play 41 games. The St. Petersburg team will play their next match at home on November 11 against Nizhnekamsk Neftekhimik.