International Ice Hockey Federation

Convincing Kazakhs

Convincing Kazakhs

Easy win against Ukraine

Published 19.04.2015 18:38 GMT+2 | Author Martin Merk
Convincing Kazakhs
Kazakh and Ukrainian players watch the puck go in for Leonid Metalnikov’s 2-0 goal in the first period. Photo: Miroslaw Ring
One of the tournament favourites, Kazakhstan started the 2015 IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship Division I Group A with a 5-2 win over Ukraine.

It was one of only few games between the two former Soviet nations. In 2011 when Ukraine hosted a Division I event on home ice in Kyiv, the Kazakhs beat Ukraine 3-2 to earn promotion. Fyodor Polishuk scored the overtime winner and he, same as some other veterans, were still on the ice when the teams played each other in Krakow four years later.

Just this time the game was even not close to being that tight. When Kazakhstan coach Andrei Nazarov faced his national team from last year, Ukraine, the roles were clear. The Kazakhs came as favourites while the Ukrainians travelled to Poland after a difficult season with little ice time in club hockey for some of the players because the crisis due to the armed conflict in parts of the country also hit hockey.

The Kazakhs came out strong and dominated the first period. After five seconds on the first power play Kevin Dallman scored from the blue line to give Kazakhstan the lead at 7:13.

Rookie defenceman Leonid Metalnikov made it 2-0 at 14:40 following a diagonal centring pass from the goal line from Vadim Krasnoslobodtsev.

The game was then interrupted at 15:03 after Yuri Petrangovsky hit Vyacheslav Tryasunov into the end boards and a piece of plexi glass broke. The teams were sent to the dressing rooms for an early intermission to solve the issue.

After the break the Kazakhs didn’t fire anymore from all cylinders but another power play was enough to make it 3-0 when a backhand shot from Krasnoslobodtsev from the face-off circle went in deflected from a Ukrainian skate.

Continue reading

The Ukrainians didn’t have too much to offer but at 6:39 of the third period Dmytro Nimenko deflected a Sergi Varlamov shot to bring his team on the scoreboard.

If that gave the Ukrainians any hope, those were here to be only destroy 80 seconds later when Konstantin Rudenko restored the three-goal leader scoring after a face-off won by Polishuk. With two minutes left, Yevgeni Rymarev scored the fifth Kazakh marker and with 26 seconds left Ukraine’s Andri Mikhnov scored the goal for the final score of 5-2.

 

Back to Overview