Angular 4 - AnimationPlayer is deprecated, how to target the current animation

I successfully created a new Angular 4 project. I added the BrowserAnimationModule to my app.module.ts and my basic animations are working. However, in an earlier version of Angular 2, I was able to target the current AnimationPlayer from @ angular / core using the ViewContainerRef like this:

this._ref['_element'].parentView.viewChildren[0].animationPlayers._allPlayers[0]._activePlayer._player;

      

        
        
        
      

    

It worked very well and I was able to get the current time, playback status, playback speed, etc.

Does anyone know how to target the _activePlayer._player equivalent in Angular 4?

Thank.