MOSCOW, November 10, Andrey Mikhailov. Management of St. Petersburg SKA would have changed their head coach if they did not trust Roman Rotenberg, who leads the team, said Alexander Medvedev, chairman of the board of directors of the hockey club.
SKA beat Chelyabinsk Traktor on Thursday in St. Petersburg (4:3 OT) in a regular season match of the Kontinental Hockey League (KHL). During the game, the club's fans hung up a banner saying «The system is not working,» and Rotenberg at the press conference avoided answering a question about this action. SKA is in eighth place in the Western Conference standings.
““Such brutal questions after a good team performance and victory, albeit in a dramatic ending in overtime,” Medvedev said, answering the question about whether Rotenberg copes with the job as head coach of SKA. “If we analyze and statistically, «and visually, SKA had an advantage. Of course, they again missed a goal less than a minute before the end and again stepped on the same rake, but in overtime the hockey gods returned the favor — Sergei Tolchinsky brilliantly converted the shootout.»
«The team continues construction. In addition to the foundation, the first and second floors must also be built. As we know, it is on these “floors” that the functional units are located. It is too early to give an opinion on the work of the head coach. If there were no trust from the management, we would have had a different coach,” emphasized the chairman of the SKA board of directors.
Rotenberg has been the head coach of SKA since January 2022. Last season, the team under his leadership won the KHL regular championship, and in the Gagarin Cup reached the final of the Western Conference, where they lost to the future playoff winner CSKA (2-4 in the series).