Kazakhstan shocks Norway
Day two of the 2023 World Championship saw Kazakhstan’s first game. This year’s Kazakh roster is shorn of the dual-nationals who have dominated in recent years. Instead, there’s a chance for home-grown talent to emerge from the Kazakh championship and prove its worth.
Few outside of Kazakhstan thought this was a likely outcome, with most predicting a fortnight of struggle for Galim Membataliyev’s team. When Norway went up 3-1 early in the second period, those predictions looked sound.
But Kazakhstan hit back. In the 35th minute, Valery Orekhov got one back. Then, midway through the third, Nikita Mikhailis tied it up. Both goals came on the power play, evidence that the new-look team Kazakhstan is absorbing instructions from the coaching staff and executing the pick of the playbook.
Saturday’s clash remained tied until the end of overtime. The shoot-out was tense: Roman Starchenko gave Kazakhstan the edge, but in the fifth round Andrei Shutov’s save denied Thomas Olsen a winning goal for Norway. In sudden death, Sondre Olden fluffed his chance and Starchenko converted for a second time to snatch a memorable win.
Goalie Andrei Shutov, part of the Barys system but mostly active with Nomad Astana last season, summed up the performance from his team.
“In the first period the whole team was a bit tense,” he said. “It was only after we allowed two goals that the shackles fell off and we began to play our hockey.
“But to be honest, I was never worried. Even at 1-3, I believed we would come back to tie it up and win the game. A shoot-out is always a lottery of course, but today our number came up and that’s great.”
Mixed fortunes for co-hosts
This year’s co-host Latvia continues to struggle. After a 0-6 thumping from Canada in the opening game, Harijs Vitolins’ team fell behind after 44 seconds of its second game against Slovakia.
“That’s obviously not going to help when you go down 1-0 right away, especially with how hard goals are to come by for us right now,” said Latvia’s Rodrigo Abols.
He later tied the game late in the second period, but the Latvians could not get the win. Instead Marek Hrivik, once of Torpedo, potted the winner midway through the third. Latvia had a chance with a late 5-on-3 power play but could not save the game.
Hrivik paid tribute to goalie Stanislav Skorvanek, who made 27 saves on the night.
“He was our best player by far,” said the forward. “He gave us a chance to win and I’m just happy that we could get that second goal and get the win for him.”
In Tampere, Finland faced Germany and hoped to bounce back from its opening loss to the USA. However, the defending champion did not have everything its own way. Things looked to be straightforward enough when Joel Armia put the Finns in front midway through the first period, but the home crowd was becalmed when Marcel Noebels fired in a shot that bounced past the flailing Juho Olkinuora to tie the game before the intermission.
Germany got ahead on a bullet of a slap shot from Kai Wissmann in the second period, but former Salavat Yulaev man Sakari Manninen scored twice in 107 seconds to restore Finland’s lead. However, seconds before the intermission, JJ Peterka tied it up at 3-3.
The winning goal came from former Jokerit and SKA defenseman Mikko Lehtonen. The blue liner was Finland’s top scorer in last year’s gold medal run and produced another clutch goal with seven minutes to play. Manninen added a helper to record his third point of the game.
Harri Pesonen, who played with Metallurg and Ak Bars in the 2020-2021 season, was pleased that his team put a smile back into the Nokia Arena after the opening-night loss.
“It’s a great atmosphere today compared to last night,” he said. “We got a lot of support from the crowd and sometimes that can be a big factor in how the game ends. It was fun to play, a lot of things happened, we were leading, they were leading, it was an exciting game.”
Pesonen added that Finland did not press the panic button after Friday’s 1-4 reverse.
“It wasn’t a big change overnight,” he said. “We just tried to focus on handling the puck better. I think we gave up some great chances to team USA and I think today we improved quite a bit. We kept Germany out of that many scoring chances when it was 5-on-5. That was a big improvement but the special teams, as we saw, are a big factor both ways. But we’re happy with tonight’s result.”
Earlier in Saturday’s six-game program, France grabbed an overtime win over Austria, Switzerland thrashed newly-promoted Slovenia 7-0 and former Jokerit man Nicklas Jensen had two assists in Denmark’s 3-1 win over Hungary, this year’s other top division newcomer.
Main photo: Eurasia Sport Images / Getty Sport / GettyImages.ru
