Hockey players of Kazakhstan have 15 players from Barys Astana of the KHL nominated for the WC

Defenseman Valery Orekhov, along with defenders Nikita Mikhailis and Maxim Muchametov, won the Gagarin game this year with Magnitogorsk in the KHL. Dmitrij Breus (Torpedo Ninij Novgorod), Leonid Metalnikov (Vladivostok) and Kirill Panjukov (Khabarovsk) play in Russian KHL clubs.

Mambetaliyev has a stable squad and last year at the world championships in Riga and Tampere, where the Kazakhs took 11th place, twenty from the current nomination presented themselves. Debut at a major international event for 20-year-old Breus, who also played in the junior MHL this season for AJK Ninij Novgorod, and young Oleg Boyek from Nomad Astana. In addition to them, only goalkeeper Sergey Kudryavtsev from Koketau and Metalnikov and Kirill Panyukov were missing last year.

In preparation, Kazai presented themselves at the tournament in Astan, where they lost to Russia 0:1 and Belarus 4:5 in overtime. They won 5:2 over Velká Britní in Slanm on Tuesday.

Kazakhstan will enter the play-offs on Saturday with a duel against France, and in other matches of Group B in Ostrava they will play Slovakia, Latvia, Germany, Germany, the United States of America and Poland.