Poprad wanted to throw off the opponent from Nitra in an unconventional way: We wanted to confuse them, but…

NITRA – The hockey players of Nitra secured their place in the quarterfinals of the Kaufland Tipos extraliga playoff in the shortest possible time. “Corgoni” defeated Poprad 3:0 in the preliminary round, and in the fight for the semi-finals, the lowest seeded team, the winner of the regular part from Košice, awaits.

The people of Nitra converted the very first match point on their home ice rink. An important moment of the match was the opening goal, which was scored by striker Adam Sýkora after only 68 seconds of the game. The Nitranians then retreated into a deeper block, the goal of which was to consistently defend the middle zone. Nitra goalkeeper Libor Kašík was the central figure not only of the third meeting, but of the entire series.

Kašík is the central character of Nitra

“I have to say that the first two matches were very difficult. Today, the guys gave a great performance from the beginning. Poprad was a bit breathless in the beginning, but we managed to score a very quick goal, which broke them a little.” stated the thirty-year-old Czech, who neutralized 110 shots against Poprad in three duels and only dropped two pucks behind his back. In the decisive match, he did not concede even once out of 35 attempts, resulting in his second clean sheet of the season.

In addition to the excellent performance, the Czech goalkeeper was also at the birth of the second goal. There were less than ten seconds left until the end of the middle part of the game, when he played the thrown puck to the offensive blue line, which was used by Nitra’s elite attack for a nice goal combination, the end of which was Filip Krivošík.

“The players from Podrad went off to substitute, which they underestimated and thought it was over. I tried to throw it to the blue as quickly as possible, Gill was there and they played it incredibly. I was very happy that we managed to surprise them like that. I think , that it was important to make it 2-0 three seconds before going to the cabins,” Kašík added.

Sadness in the cabin of Poprad

There was sadness in the visiting cabin, for which the “Chamois” coach Peter Mikula could not find words, as well as the scoreless offensive leaders Tomáš Záborský and Patrik Svitana in the series. Assistant coach František Štolc tried to evaluate the series: “I think that we spoiled the series at home. During the whole series, we did not find a recipe for the Nitra goalkeeper. Nitra tried to defend and go into quick counterattacks, which they succeeded in.”

Before the match, the players tried to find a way to throw the opponent. They wrote various scattered formations on the pre-match roster, while some players did not even have a post.

They wanted to confuse the opponent

“We wanted to confuse them so that they could not send their defensive five to our first formation, but we played normally. We tried such tactics because the opponent played at home and had the advantage of substitutions.” said Štolc, to whose words the domestic assistant coach Dušan Milo responded promptly: “We saw that they were joking. However, coach Stavjaňa is not a coach who deploys special formations on opponents, so we didn’t deal with it too much. We only didn’t know how Svitana or Záborský would play in the power play. However, it didn’t surprise us.”

The people of Nitra qualified for the quarter-finals only in the final match, when one goal played in their favor. Finally, they will be able to fight for a break into the top four against the strongest team of the regular season. High-quality defense will be an important aspect of the game against offensive Košice.

“Košice have quality attackers. However, we will have to be a little more active offensively, because I don’t know if the defense will be enough for Košice.” Milo added.

• Author: © List
• VIDEO: YouTube/Extraliga Types
• Source: TASR