Panin admitted that the departure of legionnaires from Salavat Yulaev in the spring only rallied the team even more

The captain of Salavat Yulaev, 36-year-old Grigory Panin, admitted that the team in the KHL playoffs rallied even more amid the difficulties that were associated with the departure of legionnaires in the spring.

In early March, all foreign hockey players left Salavat’s location: four Finns – the main goalkeeper Juha Metsola and forwards Markus Granlund, Teemu Hartikainen and Sakari Manninen – and Danish defender Philip Larsen.

– As a captain, it was hard for you to keep the locker room when it became clear that the coach would leave after the season, but it would still be very difficult for the team to compete for the Cup. How did you get the boys out of the trenches?

– Look at the situation that actually happened in our dressing room, in the team. At that moment, when the foreigners gradually began to leave, one, the second, then all the rest – this was also unusually happening. I understand them very well as people.

But after everyone left, our dressing room became very tight-knit. This is not a lie, I speak real words. This situation brought all the boys together and rallied so much. I can’t say that we had a super-friendly team there, but friendly, but it was this situation that turned a lot around.

We began to gather on some weekends in the locker room and all go to the bathhouse together, ate crayfish there. The whole team came to the locker room on their day off. It was so cool, such an atmosphere was cool! This is about the locker room. Therefore, answering your question, how it was necessary to “keep” the team there, there was nothing like that, the team itself supported itself.

Of course, we, the older boys: me, Kolya Kulemin, Zhenya Biryukov, somehow tried to do it all in our own way, but there was no need for any additional motivation at all. The situation itself has united us so much,” Panin told the “Championship”.

Finn club coach Tommy Lyamsya left Salavat Yulaev and headed the Finland U20 youth team. With the Ufa team, he reached the ¼ finals of the Gagarin Cup.