Kazakhstan was the surprise package in Riga. Newly promoted and expected to struggle, Yuri Mikhailis’ team pulled off a sensational shoot-out win over Finland and came within an ace of making the knock-out stage for the first time.

Now, in a group opened up by the suspension from participation of the Russians, can Kazakhstan go one better and reach the quarter finals for the first time?

The men from Central Asia are expecting a stiffer test this time. The element of surprise is gone, as experienced forward Roman Starchenko admitted. “It’s going to be tougher, for sure,” he told shaiba.kz. “Teams will watch us more closely, take us more seriously, not as an outsider but as a good, solid opponent.”

Kazakhstan’s prospects are not helped by an injury to goalie Nikita Boyarkin. The 23-year-old from Karaganda had a break-out tournament in Riga, stopping 92.9% of the shots he faced and securing shoot-out wins over Finland and Latvia. However, he’s unavailable here. Roman Savchenko, a defender blessed with a rocket of a slap shot, is another high-profile absentee. He’s fit, and trained with the national team during pre-tournament preparations, but was unable to renew his Kazakh passport in time to travel with the national team to Helsinki.

Goaltending

Andrei Shutov was the starter for Kazakhstan’s first warm-up game against Latvia, but found himself on the wrong end of a 0-5 scoreline. The 24-year-old had a disjointed season, making his KHL debut for Barys but spending most of his time in the Kazakh championship, dividing his efforts between Nomad and eventual champion Saryarka.

Yaroslavl-born Ilya Rumyantsev took over from Shutov for the second exhibition encounter in Riga. That was his first game for his adopted country, and it ended in a 1-5 loss. In club hockey, he’s seen more action than Shutov this season, backstopping Arlan Kokshetau all the way to game seven of the Pro Ligasy final.

Sergei Kudryavtsev, 27, is the most experienced goalie at international level. He’s represented Kazakhstan at three Universiade tournaments, two Division IA campaigns and Olympic qualification but has always been an understudy in IIHF play. This season he was at Orsk in Russia’s second-tier VHL; previously he played 25 games with Barys across four years in the KHL.

Defence

Darren Dietz, fresh from helping CSKA Moscow to win the Gagarin Cup, did not play in the games against Latvia. He followed a separate preparation schedule to ensure maximum fitness for the Worlds. Canadian-born Dietz is one of a trio of dual nationals on the Kazakhstan blue line; Jesse Blacker and Viktor Svedberg share a heavy weight of expectation.

Among the home-grown players, Valeri Orekhov has steadily progressed in recent seasons. At 22, he has established himself as a regular in the KHL with Barys and is back for his third IIHF campaign (one top division in 2021, two in division IA). After Barys’ bid for the Gagarin Cup ended, Orekhov joined Nomad for the Kazakh post season and his nine assists in 11 games made him the most productive Kazakh blue liner in those play-offs.

His closest challenger among Kazakh defencemen in the Pro Ligasy was Nomad team-mate Adil Beketayev. The 24-year-old suited up for his first KHL game during Barys’ play-off campaign in March; earlier he had 20 points in 29 regular season outings for Nomad and added 8 (1+7) in post season. That form earned him a first World Championship call. 

The rest of the blue line brigade is drawn from the KHL. Samat Daniyar and Yegor Shalapov are back from last year’s team; Daniyar is joined on this roster by his cousin, Sayan, a centre with Kazakh champion Saryarka. Leonid Metalnikov, 32, played the last of his three Division IA campaigns in 2019 and is poised for his top division debut here.

Forwards

Nikita Mikhailis and Curtis Valk are the big names on the Kazakh forward line. Valk often centred Mikhailis’ line at Barys during the season, and the pair contributed 85 points between them in the KHL. Now 26, Mikhailis has graduated to a leading role for club and country under the coaching of his father, Yuri, and announced himself last year in Riga with 5 (3+2) points in seven games. Valk, an Alberta native, secured his Kazakh status in time to play in Olympic qualification in 2019 and is coming off the back of his most productive KHL season.

While the Valk-Mikhailis partnership has strong connections to club hockey, the 2022 Kazakhstan team is not built solely around players from Barys. This season saw Pavel Akolzin get to the Gagarin Cup final with Metallurg, Kirill Panyukov play with KHL powerhouse Ak Bars and Dmitri Shevchenko join Avangard. In addition, Sayan Daniyar and Mikhail Rakhmanov earned their call-ups after helping Saryarka to the Kazakh title. Many of these players have previously been together at Barys, but there were concerns that the offence lacked chemistry during the warm-up games in Latvia.

One player likely to have a big role in bringing the team together is veteran Roman Starchenko. The 36-year-old has vast experience at this level, appearing in the first of his six previous top division events back in 2006. He’s also contested seven Division I campaigns and was Kazakhstan’s leading scorer in Latvia last season. 

There are some notable absences from Kazakhstan’s final line-up. The experienced Yevgeni Rymarev picked up an injury in Riga and won’t travel, while Swedish-born former Blue Jackets forward Jakub Lilja, now eligible to play after two seasons with Barys, reportedly turned down an invitation to join the team. But emerging star Batyrlan Muratov has been the talking point back home. The 23-year-old forward caught the eye this season with Arlan, but national team head coach Mikhailis admits that he’s unsure how to incorporate the young forward into the roster. The winger’s skill set is best suited to a top six role, rather than being asked to eat up minutes on a checking line. However, Mikhailis is concerned that the prospect is not quite ready to play a leading role at this level and Muratov will have to wait until he joins RoKi next season before he gets to play in Finland.

Coaching

Yuri Mikhailis returns behind the bench. His reputation soared last year as Kazakhstan impressed in Riga, but he’s coming off a difficult campaign with Barys in the KHL. The Nur-Sultan team made it into the play-offs but was unimpressive in the regular season and exited in the first round. His team’s problems were not helped by Kazakhstan’s Covid restrictions, but there remained a sense that his players were treading water at best.

However, since replacing Andrei Skabelka, Mikhailis has done a good job at reconnecting Team Kazakhstan with its fans. Skabelka’s reign will primarily be remembered for the Olympic qualification failure on home ice in Feb. 2020, when Poland secured a shock win in Nur-Sultan. Mikhailis is lifted by last season’s encouraging World Championship campaign and enjoys the confidence of his players and fans alike.

Projected results

It’s possible to argue that Kazakhstan is well placed to improve on last year’s performance. With Russia suspended this season and France taking the remaining place in Group A, there’s a clear opportunity for an unfamiliar team to make the last eight. The Kazakhs should be capable of getting results against France (May 15) and Italy (May 23), pushing them into a mini-league with Switzerland, Germany, Denmark and Slovakia for the right to join a Canadian roster that is almost certain to progress.

That’s the good news. However, performances in warm-up games in Latvia – a 0-5 loss followed by a 1-5 reverse – were not hugely encouraging. In particular, there was little sign of any of the team’s netminders getting hot as the tournament hoves into view. And, as Starchenko points out, Kazakhstan can no longer rely on flying under the radar to shock the opposition. The opening game against Denmark will likely set the tone: a winning start could provide the momentum to break into the play-offs, but defeat against a promising Danish roster might leave Kazakhstan with too much to do to claim a top-four finish in the group.