Tambiev after 1-3 loss: Dynamo would bench leaders if depth allowed

Dynamo head coach Leonid Tambiev said he would already have put some of his senior players in the stands if the squad had the depth for it. He was speaking after a 1-3 home defeat by Salavat Yulaev in the Fonbet KHL Championship.

"If we had depth in the squad, I would already have sat someone in the stands to watch hockey from the outside," Tambiev said. "Maybe that would have an effect. For now my hands and feet are tied and I can't take action."

He said the coaches talk to the club's leaders, but that talking is not enough. "It has to be shown on the ice," Tambiev said. "Pressure doesn't work here, the players understand that. Where are the other so-called leaders on paper? For now we wait." When the young players set up a goal, he said, that is logical.

Asked whether the club would "cut into the living flesh" and make trades, he answered no. "We believe in these players, since we signed them. We hope they start scoring. Ten games have gone by, they know the statistics. We won't score for them," Tambiev said. Sikura had two chances, he noted, and asked how many more were needed. Opponents, he said, put their shots away, and Vladislav Podyapolsky had no chance of saving the goals.

Finishing was not the only issue. "I have plenty of questions beyond finishing: game discipline, key moments, the components of the game," Tambiev said. Asked where the discipline problem starts, he said: "We'll sort it out. We'll tighten those things. Democracy is good up to a point. When we act, they will start thinking. A number of cheap penalties have to go."

Bondar and Melikov created Dynamo's only goal. "I don't want to over-praise the young ones, but they created a goal, well done," Tambiev said. "They have a lot still to work on."

With trades ruled out and the bench thin, this may mean the same group gets more time to fix the penalties and the finishing. Any change in the line-up would then come from how the leaders play in the next few fixtures.