A length injury list leaves KHL team Amur Khabarovsk in dire need of new acquisitions, coach Hannu Jortikka said Wednesday.
Jortikka spoke after Amur thrashed Avtomobilist Yekaterinburg 5-1 on home ice. The big winning margin wasn't enough to hide problems with staffing the team, he said.
“We have no other choice but to play with whom we have, but we need new players,” Jortikka said.
“We’ve got many injured players: defensemen Oleg Piganovich, Topi Jaakola, [Vladimir] Loginov, Nikita Korovkin and forward Alexander Nikulin.”
The scorers for Amur were Alexander Yunkov, Evgeny Korotkov and Jakub Petruzalek, and Dmitry Shitikov and Mika Pyorala added empty-net goals in the last minute.
Avtomobilist is bottom in the East with ten defeats in 13 games, with Amur one place below the playoff zone on ninth.
“We should be happy that we earned three points today,” Jortikka said.
“We started very well, but then Vladimir Loginov picked up an injury and it was very hard to play with five defensemen.”
Amur travels to Moscow to face champion Dynamo on Sunday while Avtomobilist hosts SKA St. Petersburg on Saturday.
