Zhamnov Apologises to Spartak Fans After 2:4 Loss

Alexei Zhamnov apologised to Spartak's supporters after his side let a 5-minute power play against Avtomobilist pass with a single shot on goal, calling the display "unacceptable".

Spartak lost 2:4 at home in the Fonbet KHL Championship on Saturday. The hosts started well, but the man-advantage spell early in the first period settled nothing.

"We started well, then we had a five-minute power play, and the top players came on and managed one shot in that time. I wanted to apologise to the fans for that kind of performance — what we did in the third period, we should have been doing for the whole match."

Zhamnov said the team needs to play at the level it showed in the third period from the opening minute, not just the closing ones.

"We'll get to the bottom of it, but playing that badly on the power play is not acceptable. The leaders we count on go out there, and playing like that, in my view, is unacceptable. There's a big question mark over a number of players — we're waiting for productivity from them and it isn't there. You wait for shots, for threat, and without shots I could go out and skate around myself."

Pavel Poryadin sat out the match on the coaching staff's decision. Asked why, Zhamnov said: "Sometimes you need to look at the game from above, understand what's going on, and get yourself together. Sometimes you give a player a breather, but the situation we're in doesn't allow us those luxuries. We need to climb out of the hole we've dug ourselves into. If the team plays from the first minute to the last the way it played in the closing stages today, the result will be completely different. But we can't claim that yet."

Only Alexander Belyaev and Kirill Filin were creating and scoring, Zhamnov noted, adding that goals from in front of the net require players to be willing to go into the contact areas.

Spartak sit fifth in the Western Conference on 11 points.