Review of the season: Barys. Third season without playoffs
KHL.ru starts reviewing the 2024-2025 season for every league’s team. Barys entered the championship with a new head coach, an overhauled roster, and high expectations, but things soon changed dramatically for the Astana franchise.
At the post-season press conference for 2023-2024, Barys president Boris Ivanishchev stressed that “the team will be built anew” and outlined planned roster changes. On May 8 2024, the club announced the appointment of David Nemirovsky as head coach on a one-year contract. Work on the transfer market then began: the squad was bolstered by players with plenty of KHL experience as well as several intriguing imports (Barys is exempt from the foreign-player limit). Anton Burdasov, Viktor Antipin, Johan Mattsson, Nikita Kamalov, Damir Zhafyarov, Michael McLeod, and Chase De Leo are just part of the incoming list.
Yet the carriage quickly turned into a pumpkin, chiefly because of poor results. Barys’ start to the season was disastrous, with only two wins in fourteen games. The 1:10 drubbing by Torpedo stands out, along with a 0:5 loss to Ak Bars and 1:5 defeats to Dinamo Minsk and Amur. By 26 September the team for the game against HC Sochi was being led by Vyacheslav Butsayev, who had replaced Nemirovsky as head coach, but that was not the end of the upheaval as the new man stayed in charge for just over three weeks. He was succeeded by Galym Mambetaliyev, after which the club tore up the contracts of several imports. All this turbulence kept Barys from contending for a playoff place: on Feb 13 the club lost any chance of springtime hockey and ultimately finished last in the Eastern Conference.
Best players
Adil Beketayev
19 points (5 goals + 14 assists) in 62 games
Nothing illustrates Barys’ situation better than the fact that the team’s top scorer of the season was a defenseman with a modest 19 points. This was Beketayev’s fourth KHL season and his second-best in terms of production—he had 21 points in the 2022-2023 regular season. He also ranked among the team leaders in average ice time (19:47), second only to Will Butcher (22:49), although Butcher played just fifteen games for the club.
Nikita Boyarkin
9 wins in 38 games, 92.4% save percentage, 2.45 GAA
Barys used four goaltenders over the season, but Boyarkin was the undisputed number one. He shouldered a heavy workload throughout the regular season, facing an average of 31 shots per game. Nikita performed quite well under the circumstances, making some incredible saves that helped the team steal a few wins.
Alikhan Omirbekov
58 games, 16 points (7 goals + 9 assists)
Omyrbekov can easily be called Barys’ most improved player this season. He played 52 games last year and 58 this time, but his point total nearly tripled—from six to sixteen Over the course of the season, he earned time on the power play, posted the team’s second-highest shooting percentage (11.1%), and led all forwards in blocked shots with 70.
Coaching
During the 2024-2025 season, Barys changed head coaches three times in just 163 days—a possible record. Nemirovsky, appointed on May 8, was dismissed very quickly, not even lasting a month into the regular season. Butsayev, who replaced him, simply didn’t have the time or opportunity to make any significant changes. Finally, Mambetaliyev took over and focused on developing young Kazakh players. However, this approach ultimately benefited neither Barys nor the Kazakhstan national team: by the end of the regular season, the club trailed the Eastern Conference playoff zone by a staggering 34 points, and the national team was relegated from the top division of the World Championship.
Best Game
Barys’ most exciting game—in terms of both drama and outcome—came near the end of the regular season in Vladivostok against Admiral. By the 21st minute, the Astana side was down 0:3. They pulled one back, only to quickly concede a fourth. They entered the third period trailing by three goals but managed to stage a comeback. First, 19-year-old Semyon Simonov scored, followed by a goal from Mikhail Rakhmanov, and finally Adil Beketayev completed the comeback. Notably, Roman Starchenko assisted on both Rakhmanov’s and Beketayev’s goals, then netted the decisive shootout goal to secure the win for Barys.
Youngsters
After parting ways with several imports, Barys gave young players a chance to prove themselves—eighteen players aged 23 and under suited up for the team, thirteen of whom made their KHL debuts. Some didn’t get much ice time, but a few stood out: Beibarys Orazov (20 years old, 48 games), Simonov (19, 24 games), Kirill Lyapunov (20, 16 games), Danil Butenko (23, 35 games), and Aslan Zhusupbekov (20, 15 games). Many of them will likely compete for roster spots next season.
Summer work
So far, Barys’ offseason activity on the transfer market has been limited to issuing qualifying offers—22 players from the club system, mostly young prospects, received them. Meanwhile, the last remnants of last summer’s acquisitions have left the team: contracts expired for Johan Mattsson, Viktor Antipin, Anton Burdasov, Damir Zhafyarov, Ilya Khokhlov, Stanislav Bocharov, and Nikita Setdikov, and the club opted not to renew ties with any of them.
