Before the away trip to St. Petersburg, Shenzhen Vanke Sunshine only held a training session on February 22, and only two groups of players participated at that time. But thanks to team effort and a desire to win, the team has won four straight away games in St. Petersburg and Krasnoyarsk. The team returned to Moscow on 1 March to prepare for a match against the Tornadoes on 7 March.
Several players scored their first goal of the season
In his first match against Piriusa, Finnish defender Tominin scored after receiving an assist from his teammates, his first goal of the new season. In fact, the three-time Winter Olympic bronze medalist has scored many goals, and she scored two goals and one assist at the Beijing Winter Olympics. Commenting on the victory with Piriusa, Tominen said: "It was a team victory achieved by the team's efforts, and this game with Pliusa was difficult, we seized our own opportunity, a great team victory. ”
After the match against Neva Dinamo, Michel Cavinin joined the team, where she scored two goals and two assists in her second match against Pilyusa. In response, Cavinen said: "Today was a solid team win, we fought for each other, today our desire in front of the goal is even stronger, which is probably why we won. ”
Houston, who scored two goals and two assists at Piliusa, said: "We played a good team game, And Bliusa made a lot of difficulties for us, but the players in each group were playing for each other and it was a great win. ”
For the two victories in Krasnoyarsk, Shenzhen Vanke Sunshine coach Brian Idarski also summed it up: "For such a well-organized, well-defended team that puts a lot of pressure on us, we handle this very well. Two fantastic wins at Pilyusa. In my opinion, we want to get better every game and we do a great job. ”
Hopefully, this good state will continue
In the 2020-2021 season finals, Kavinen scored three goals in 3 games. But this is her first season in the regular season of the Russian Women's Hockey League (WHL), she said: "I have only played two games this season, but at the moment it is a great league, it is fun to play here, and the level is high. It's a lot of fun to play on this team, every time we play, everyone is very creative, and although we have taken a defensive approach and don't have a lot of chances, we still find a lot of fun and have fun playing with everyone. ”
Commenting on the four-game winning streak away from home, Tominen said: "This is a good start to the second stage of the league after the Winter Olympics and we will continue from here. ”
Houston also said it would be great to be able to win four straight away games after the Winter Olympics. 'It was a little difficult at first, but every one of us was involved, coming out as a team, playing a good team fit, sacrificing for each other, four wins in a row was great.'
Houston, Kavinen and Tominin all competed in the 2020-2021 finals with Ufa, but in three best-of-two matches, Shenzhen Vanke Sunshine lost the free kick battle in the final and missed the championship. In response, Houston said: "We will come back with hunger, I think a lot of us don't want to repeat that ending, get rid of last season's loss, we are all eager to win, will play as a team, train hard for each other, hope to finally achieve the goal." 」 ”