Recap
Kazakhstan had huge problems with the players and the coach. All naturalized players rejected to play for the national team and the Kazakh government has introduced huge penalties for them. Thus, the national team said goodbye to key players Pavel Akolzin, Dmitri Gurkov, Yegor Petukhov, Anton Sagadayev, Dmitri Shevchenko, Curtis Valk, Jesse Blacker, Darren Dietz, Yegor Shalapov, Viktor Svedberg, Ilya Rumyantsev. Most of these players were the strength of Kazakhstan and their absence will be visible at the tournament held in Finland and Latvia. In addition, there were problems with the coach, and a month before the start of the World Championship, the coach had to be changed due to sanctions. Andrej Skabiełka is Belarusian and his entry into Latvia is prohibited. He was replaced by Galym Mambetaliyev, who doesn’t have much experience in leading the national team. Kazakhstan played 4 friendly matches and defeated South Korea twice 5:0 and 8:2, but the level of South Korea is very weak, while they lost 0:3 to Russia’s U25 team and 0:6 to Belarus. In the first two rounds, they won against Norway after overtime (Norway leads 3:1 and Kazakhstan scores after two power play) and easily lost by Czech Republic (5:1). Switzerland easily prevailed against Norway (3:0), Slovenia (7:0) and will crash Kazakhstan without any problems.