Russia's 2-1 win over Latvia revealed problems in defense, Russia hockey coach Zinteula Bilyaletdinov said Saturday.
Friday's victory came courtesy of Ak Bars Kazan forward Alexei Tereshchenko, who struck what turned out to be the winning goal eight minutes into the second period.
Severstal Cherepovets forward Evgeny Kitov scored after two minutes in his international debut, before Armands Berzins equalized for Latvia six minutes later.
“It was hard for us to get into the game, especially regarding the defensemen," Bilyaletdinov said. "We have specific questions for them,” he said.
“I can’t understand why, but it’s obvious that they weren’t in very good condition to perform.”
Many of the Russian players had not played for several weeks after their KHL teams crashed out of the playoffs, and were out of practice, he added.
“Overall the game was not bad. Of course, not everything worked out. The reason may be that half of our team hadn’t played for a month.”
The Latvia game was part of the Euro Ice Hockey Challenge, a collection of minor ice hockey tournaments often used to blood new players.
Dynamo Moscow forward Mikhail Anisin has impressed in the KHL playoffs, but was unavailable for the Latvia game due to his part in the ongoing Gagarin Cup final series.
The diminutive 24-year-old forward would receive a call-up for next week’s Euro Hockey Tour event in the Czech Republic and Russia, Bilyaletdinov said.
“I plan to invite him to the Euro Hockey Tour and see how he performs,” he said.
Russia will face Finland, Sweden and the Czech Republic at the event, which runs from April 26 through 29.
