Season preview. Barys: Backing local talent
In our traditional pre-season round-up, KHL.ru looks at the state of each team ahead of the 2025/2026 campaign. For the past three years, Barys has fallen further down the standings and was dead last in 2025. The climb back up the table will likely take more than one season.
Last season
The 2024/2025 campaign was undoubtedly the worst in history for Barys. Not only was it a third successive year without making the playoffs, it also represented the lowest ever finish for the club. Barys won just 14 of its 68 games, and only eight of them in regulation. The team failed to score in 18 games, and was held to a solitary marker 20 times. At the other end, the Kazakhs allowed 5+ goals on 15 occasions, suffering such painful drubbings as a 0-8 loss to Ak Bars and a 1-10 hammering against Torpedo.
Yet last summer often little sign of the disaster to unfold: the recruitment campaign looked solid, with some proven players arriving. But a weak start to the season led to a full-on rebuild during the season. Almost every import was fired and the head coach’s office was fitted with a revolving door: David Nemirovsky, appointed in May, lasted seven games; his replacement Vyacheslav Butsayev managed eight. Evgeny Korolyov took charge of one game between their spells, and Galym Mambetaliyev became the fourth head coach in just 45 chaotic days.
Recruitment
Departures:
Goalie: Johan Mattsson (Mannheim, Germany). Defensemen: Viktor Antipin, Ilya Khokhlov. Forwards: Stanislav Bocharov, Anton Burdasov, Damir Zhafyarov (Neftekhimik), Mikhail Rakhmanov, Nikita Setdikov
Arrivals:
Defensemen: Ian McCoshen (Kunlun Red Star), Yury Pautov (try-out, Kunlun). Forwards: Mike Vecchione (Traktor), Emil Galimov (Avangard)
This summer, the bulk of Barys’s efforts were focussed on securing new deals with last season’s players. The team only brought in new faces this week. From Chelyabinsk, where it seems there is an urgent need to free up a space for an import, 32-year-old American forward Mike Vecchione arrives within weeks of signing for Traktor. He brings two Calder Cups with him to Kazakhstan.
Another new arrival, Ian McCoshen, played for Kunlun Red Star last season. He averaged 17 minutes a game and had 19 (4+15) points to rank third among defensemen. However, the 30-year-old is not needed at the new-look Shanghai Dragons and is moving on.
Forward Emil Galimov, 33, arrives as a free agent after leaving Avangard. He played just 16 games last season for 8 (4+4) points. A further group of players are currently on try-out contracts.
Coaching
Last year’s uncertainty behind the bench continued into the summer. Mambetaliyev looked set to continue, but in late July Korolyov was suddenly given the job. Then, at the start of August, Mikhail Kravets was named as head coach. Kravets previously worked with SKA, Vityaz, Amur, Avangard and Kunlun. He’s coached 379 games in the KHL (seventh among currently active coaching, and 20th all-time in the league), winning 188 of them. It’s worth noting that Vityaz, Amur and Kunlun were all in situations comparable with Barys’s current plight. Kravets did not have all the answers, but in each case he made the teams more competitive and, at Vityaz, even reached the playoffs.
Goalies
Without Nikita Boyarkin, last season would surely have been even worse for Barys. He stole some victories for his team, and prevented several losses from turning into humiliations. But in February he suffered a serious cruciate ligament injury and underwent an operation in March. He’s due back in action in October, and will miss the early part of the season. That offers a chance for Andrei Shutov and Artyom Shestakov to prove themselves.
Defense
The previously-mentioned McCoshen and triallist Yury Pautov bring experience to a D-core where the oldest remaining player was Adil Beketayev (27) with three seasons of KHL experience. Last season, Beketayev had 19 points, making him the team’s scoring leader – including the forwards!
Forwards
Beketayev’s success, of course, implies a failure of all the Barys forwards. The most productive among them, Nikita Setdikov (9+9), was not offered a new contract. Leading goal scorer Anton Burdasov (12) suffered a similar fate. New faces Vecchione and Galimov could improve things, but won’t lead a fundamental change. The remaining forwards from last season, none of whom managed 10 assists, let alone 10 goals, need to raise their game significantly to meet the challenges of the KHL.
Prospects
Last season’s rebuild and the mass exodus of imports inevitably opened the door for young prospects. Barys used 17 players aged under 23. However, only three of them featured in at least half the team’s games, and they didn’t get all that much ice time. Beibarys Orazov, who turned 20 in May, saw the most action with 48 games. At the end of the season he celebrated his first point in the KHL. Interestingly, in the Junior Hockey League he was the most productive defenseman for the Kazakhs’ junior, generating 12 (4+8) points in just 10 appearances. That speaks well of Orazov, but also raises questions about his fellow youngsters.
It seems that among the skaters Orazov is the most likely to make progress. Meanwhile, Boyarkin’s injury and recovery time offers a good chance for Shestakov in goal.
What to expect
In 2023, Barys finished third from bottom. In 2024 it was second bottom and last season it came dead last. The decline is obvious, and easy to understand. It’s also obvious that while last season saw a serious effort to solve this crisis, there is no such attempt this summer. That also has a certain logic: if last year’s efforts came to naught, it makes sense to try a different path. That path, laid by homegrown talent, won’t be finished overnight. But in the longer term it can deliver the goods, even if there’s unlikely to be a swift revival of Barys’s fortunes. It’s hard to see the Kazakhs returning to the playoffs this season, but greater competition for roster slots can cut the gap to ninth place – which was 32 points last season – which is already a sign of progress.
