A sensation at the champion's expense! Šimášek shut the door and Vipers showed the defending champion out of the playoffs

MAD Vipers are in the semifinals! Against Wild Thing Karaoke they were trailing 0:1 after the first half, but they turned the game around to 3:1 and took the series 2:0. They knocked out the reigning champion right in the first round. The Player of the Week is goaltender Martin Šimášek, who stopped almost everything that came at the net. We asked him about his performance, the team's comeback, the feeling of eliminating the favorite and also what awaits Vipers against HK Petržalka.

1. One goal allowed against Wild Thing Karaoke. How would you rate your performance?
Martin: “To be honest, I didn't think about it much. I try to approach every game the same way, but if I can take my teammates' satisfaction as the yardstick, I guess I did my bit of the job really well.”

2. ⁠Although you were trailing 0:1 at the break, in the end you managed to turn the game around to 3:1. How do you rate your team's performance?

Martin: “The boys were fantastic. They played consistent, selfless hockey the whole time, which in the end, I guess, pleased Lady Luck as well, and she granted us the goals we needed.”

3. ⁠On the face of it you won the series fairly easily, 2:0. What does it feel like to eliminate the reigning champion right in the first round of the playoffs?

Martin: “Wins over favorites are probably the sweetest ones, doubly so in the playoffs, and playing a series like this against a team of WTK's quality is really something I'm going to ‘frame.’ Because even a process like this, maybe simple going by the scores, takes 80 minutes in which you have to be ready the whole time to show everything you know in hockey.”

4. ⁠In the playoff semifinals the regular-season winner, HK Petržalka, is already waiting for you. Will you prepare for this opponent in any special way?

Martin: “I'd rather say that for us it will be about trying to stick to the principles that got us to the semifinals. HKP of course plays a considerably different kind of hockey than Karaoke, but we have our own ‘trademark’ too, which, as we've seen now and several times in the regular season, also has something to offer.”

5. ⁠Your advance to the semifinals has been the biggest surprise of this year's playoffs so far. Did your manager motivate you with some kind of “reward” for advancing?

Martin: “Ha, there's been no talk of special rewards so far, but if things keep going our way, I'd definitely keep a close eye on the Instagram of Paťo's wife.”

Right in the first round, Vipers made it clear that in the playoffs it is not the on-paper predictions that decide, but the performance on the ice. Šimášek comes across as calm and doesn't play the savior, but that is exactly the kind of goalie you want when advancing is on the line – steady and ready. Now comes HK Petržalka, a completely different type of opponent, and there it will no longer be enough to “just” get through a game. But if Vipers keep what got them here – discipline, sacrifice and patience – the semifinal will be no walk in the park for the Petržalka side, but a real fight for the final.