SKA’s relegation is everyone’s fault: the new arena, the terrible referees, the injuries. And Rotenberg has nothing to do with it yet?

Roman Rotenberg’s third season as coach ended even earlier than the previous ones – in the quarterfinals of the KG. And while all of Yekaterinburg is celebrating a grandiose 4:1 in the series against the favorite, St. Petersburg is looking for the culprits. Everything here is like a selection: an endless series of injuries, referee prejudices, a squad that is too inexperienced. Even the brand new SKA Arena is on the short list of reasons for failure!

Not a word about the head coach. And of course: the man is preparing for the championship. On the fourth try.

From “crazy potential” to “we are like soldiers”

Roman Borisovich’s apology is cherished. It’s like you’ve been eating it for a year, but you still don’t get enough. Airplane legs, bad ice, lifelong scars… I remembered and shed a tear.

After the final defeat against the Avtomobilist, Rotenberg did not change. Here is an incomplete list of theses on the topic “Why did the SKA take off so early”:

• Injuries. “Yes, it turned out that in the first series with Torpedo we lost many key players. A lot of our guys played today with serious injuries, broken bones and other injuries. We made the most of what we had. The leaders of our team are Sasha Nikishin, Andrey Pedan, Vladimir Alistrov, who was seriously injured, and other guys who played with injuries. Turns out our guys were broken from the first episode. They are seriously injured.”
• Young and inexperienced team. “The team has crazy potential, we just have to realize it. The team is young. We have guys who are injured right now. If we had been fully equipped for combat, everything would have happened differently. It is always difficult for students to take on the role of leaders. It’s the reason the series happened. But there are guys who have proven themselves and demonstrated leadership qualities. The same Gritsyuk, for example, and other guys.
• Passage from Ledovoy to SKA Arena. “We are like soldiers here: we were told to move, we moved. This also affected the result of this season. Moving is not an easy story. Our employees have accomplished a feat. Our guys went from normal conditions, where they were used to playing and winning, to a new arena. It’s an experience. We never make excuses, but this makes our job one hundred percent more difficult.

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We will leave the heartbreaking story of the move without comment. But let me disagree with other arguments.

Injuries ? Yes they were. And we sincerely wish the retired SKA players recovery. But “Avtomobilist” can act according to the same methodology. The most experienced captain, Sergei Shirokov, also left the team in the middle of the second round. And nothing stopped me.

A young and inexperienced team? In the context of the series with “Auto” – perhaps. Here, the links between the leaders (Obidin, Khripunov, Meisek, Ebert, etc.) have been playing out for years. Unlike the SKA, which carried out a global purge in the summer of 2023. Well, isn’t that the main problem?

And in general, inexperience is a strange argument. For the balance of power, there is the candidacy of the club, which before the start of the season reached almost 50 people in the workforce. Of course, later this decreased. True, there were also transfers: goalkeeper Serebryakov came from Admiral, striker Rendulic from Sochi. All this happened in the middle of the regular season, clearly affecting the combat effectiveness of the “sellers”. In fact, the playoffs were never held in Vladivostok and on the Black Sea coast.

SKA, having satisfied the necessary “wants”, entered the KG draw as an obvious leader with an incredibly large bench. And he was eliminated in the second round.

Cause? Well, arbitration, what else!

“The most offensive style of play – but the one that generates the most penalties”

The day after the sensational defeat, the chairman of the board of directors of SKA, Alexander Medvedev, spoke. His entire speech was dedicated to bias towards the St. Petersburg clubs. Hockey is no exception.

The main arguments of Alexander Ivanovich: the referees spoiled the SKA match yesterday (“Well, how could Serebryakov be sent off, who clearly played the puck? And the moment at the end with the delay of the puck? This is simply absurd”), most of the injuries in the team were due to blatant violations of the opponent (“Very often this is due to missed dirt, unqualified fouls”), and the referees dare to expel the best attack in the league (“The team that shoots the most in the league with the most offensive style of play – but with the most penalties. And so from the first match. No other way than this cannot be explained as bias).

No doubt there have been some strange deletions. Including in the series with “Auto”. And the club management has every right to its position. But there are many more facts in favor of a purely playful victory for the Urals. Here you have the deadly shots of the army in its own zone, and only 2 power plays made in 16 attempts, and complete failures during counterattacks of others, and the lack of tactics to destroy the super defense organized by the adversary.

And this can be done endlessly. And there is only one conclusion: one of the best, most stable clubs of recent years completely lost the tactical battle to a strong middle peasant. A middle-of-the-road player who just a month ago was considered a cup loser and never made it past the second round.

Usually such defeats are on the coach’s conscience. I didn’t tighten it, I didn’t declassify it, I didn’t motivate it. But the SKA abandoned this policy. And why, when Roman Borisovich is already preparing for the new season?

Rotenberg is already promising mountains of gold. Do we believe?

“We took a step back this season. We wanted to take a step forward, but sometimes you take one step back, then two steps forward,” Rotenberg admitted at yesterday’s press conference.

To be honest, there are a lot of questions about his pedometer. We remind you: the 2021/22 and 2022/23 seasons are marking time (start in 1/2 KG), the 2023/24 season is behind (start in ¼ KG). The Army team hasn’t gone on vacation this early since 2014.

The head coach of SKA also achieved his own personal anti-record – five victories in the playoffs. This is the club’s worst performance since 2010, excluding the Covid season.

If Roman Borisovich now occupied his former role as manager, the specialist subordinate to him would instantly be expelled with all honors. And that’s not why they were fired. But since we can’t withdraw (where have we seen that?), we’ll have to wait until next season. And then again and again. And so on until the end of the contract in 2028.

Will anything change? Rotenberg says yes. He does not envisage an annual purge of the team (do we believe?), but he has already made “golden” promises: “From what I understand, the SKA does not need extensive staff renewal. Now we have a team with good development potential, it contains guys who can bring more than one cup to St. Petersburg, we promise this to our fans. Here you need to look at the key moments. There are not many opportunities in the market. We will look at the players, but we have to work with this team, fine-tune the details to win.

What can I say… Work, Roman Borisovich! If you don’t win the playoffs on the fourth try, to hell with it. At least you’ll please us with a few choice memes.