Zhamnov blames discipline and freshness for Spartak's 3-1 loss

Spartak head coach Alexei Zhamnov blamed the 3-1 defeat at Salavat Yulaev in the KHL on poor discipline and heavy legs.

"It was a hard game. We ran out of steam, and our discipline let us down," Zhamnov said.

Asked why Spartak took so many penalties, he pointed to the start of the match. "There were many moments where we need to play better. Giving Ufa a power play early on killed our rhythm," he said.

Spartak did not shoot at Vyazovoy's goal for almost 13 minutes. Zhamnov put it down to the penalties. "There are special teams, the players who work on the power play and the penalty kill. When we were short-handed we used one group of players, but on the power play the lads had sat for six minutes and found it hard to get back into the game."

He agreed that Spartak should have kept it simpler in the third period and put more pressure on the goal. "We should have. But because of our discipline we did not have the freshness at the end to do the right things."

"It is a long season. We have to learn from it and move on. We can still improve our game, and that will show in the results. But the lads did well," Zhamnov said.