In the aftermath of a testy afair between HV71 Jonkoping and Red Bull Salzburg, opposing forwards Chris Campoli and Konstantin Komarek answered a few questions.

by Marcus Vilson

JONKOPING – HV71 hosted Red Bull Salzburg on Saturday in Group C action. It was their first game of this year's CHL, while Salzburg were playing their second after falling to SonderjyskE in Denmark on Thursday. After two scoreless periods, Salzburg scored in the first minute of the third, but then HV71 scored four goals in a row to hand the Austrian champs their second-straight 4–1 loss. In addition to the key points, the win was sweet for the Jonkoping club after losing twice to the Red Bulls last season. 

After the game, HV71's Chris Campoli and Salzburg's Konstantin Komarek shared their thoughts. 

What did you think about the game, Chris?

CC: “I thought it was a good game. Obviously it was close for two periods – both teams had some opportunities. It was tight and it seemed like who ever made the first mistake was going to lose the game. We made some mistakes, but we found a way to recover. We continued to get traffic and punched to the net. As a team, that’s one of our goals and if we continued to do those things, we were going to win the game.” 

What about your own performance?
 
CC: “It felt good. I felt like we showed our true colours in the third period. We came together and I personally felt that, when the group skates as that together it is a much easier game to play. When you move the puck, you find someone and there’s always someone to support you. I felt it got that way in the third.

I’ve been following HV71 for a couple of years now and it seems as there’s a big difference between this and last years group. What do you think about this?

CC: “I don’t know if there’s a big difference. We had a good team last year too. We believe in this club and we just keep working hard. We’ve only played two games this year so far. One of them didn’t matter and this one was nice to get off of the right foot. We believe in ourselves and we’re going to keep working. As a group we got goals that we’re going to achieve and that’s really our focus and we’re not thinking at the past or the future. We know that hard work will take us to our goal.” 

What did you think about the game, Konstantin?

KK: “I thought that there was an even game through the first two periods of play. In the third we started out well and scored the first goal. After they went ahead 2-1, I don’t know what happened. We focused on the wrong things and took some penalties, which led to us getting away from our own game plan.” 

The game became a little irritated out there between the teams.

KK: “Yes, we got 10 or 12 penalties and they got one, but it doesn’t mean that this was the reason. HV71’s win was well deserved. You get frustrated when it goes this way and we focused on that, which was our big mistake today.” 

What about your own performance?

KK: “I thought it was quite good. I’ve been injured for two games and for the first game it was quite good.” 

Salzburg was missing Brett Sterling today. Did this had an effect on the team?

KK: “A little of course. He is a really good player and he’s one of our best import players, so it had a little bit of an effect, yes. We have four good lines without him too, so it isn’t why we lost the game.”