Waiting for USA - Russia

RUSSIA

Zinetula Bilyaletdinov - coach
"They're a good team, a good hard-working team. There will be no lucky wins."
"We put the first game behind us and we worked on whatever problems we had. Everyone encounters problems once in a while. All you have to do to win a hockey game is to play it the right way. It is going to be a serious match. We looked through the tapes already and we are going to make a decision on the approach later today. We were a bit nervous on defence before, but we have a good choice of finishers and we can score even more than in the previous game."

Pavel Datsyuk - captain
"It's only another team in another country for us. They are a good team. USA is definitely not Slovenia. USA is a much tougher opponent and we will have a good test. Every USA player is very good and has huge potential."

Ilya Kovalchuk
"This game will be a good test for our team. It will be a physical game with lots of movement. It will be great to test what we can do. They have a good roster. A lot of the guys have played in Vancouver so they know what it's like to win. It will be a good test for us. It's important to win. As for the goal, believe me, nobody here is counting who scores or passes how much."

Valeri Nichushkin
"I am not thinking if I will get more ice time against the USA after scoring a goal in debut:. It doesn't matter how much I will play, the important thing is for the result to be good."

USA

Dan Blysma - coach
"Their team is very talented and maybe the most talented in the tournament. They have some of the star players, Yevgeni Malkin for example. I never know what he is going to do next and sometimes I have no idea how he does it. You might have to expect the unexpected against a player of that ilk and the talent that he is, but there are more people on that line than Malkin. It's not just going to be one or two players on their team that we have to beat. We may have a little more info on how to get to Malkin but I'm sure it's not going to be the full story."

Zach Parise - captain
"The most important thing is to play in the offensive zone as much we can and try to frustrate them."

David Backes
"We need to play our sort of North American, grinding style where we're getting pucks in and forechecking, making the ice hard to have out there. If they have to earn everything they get out there tomorrow, it was a good job by us. USA-Russian rivalry: there will be some good emotions, there's some great history. But it's a game that's a preliminary game. I faced the skilled players on Russia's top two lines:on a regular basis in the NHL. Make every inch of ice tough for them to get, lean on them, make sure they're not out there free-wheeling, because their level of skill is like none other and they'll pick you apart if you give them too much respect or too much ice to make plays on. Get in their face, make sure they're having a tough time finding that open ice. And try to have the pucks on our sticks in their end as much as possible. It's a good way to keep them off the scoreboard."

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