Russia earns a hard-fought victory

After their shootout win against Switzerland, the newly promoted Kazakhs were ready to battle again, this time against Russia. The hosts of the Worlds, freshly defeated 3-0 by the Czech Republic, were on their part starving for victory. 

Thanks to the so-called "Canakhstan line" made of Dustin Boyd, Nigel Dawes and Brandon Bochewski (the latter being, in fact, American), Kazakhstan started strong, and with a deep knowledge of the Russians' style of play given by their frequent clashes in the KHL, a league where the backbone of the team plays (mostly in Barys Astana). This didn't prevent Russia to score first with Dadonov, after which Kazakhstan scored twice, first on powerplay with Boyd, and then on equal strenght with Roman Starchenko. Less than a minute later, though, the Russians signed a temporary equalizer with Roman Lyubimov. A goal per side, respectively thanks to Mozykin for Russia and Rymarev for Kazakhstan, set the matter on a 3-3, with a high scoring first period coming to an end.

Kazakhstan beat Bobrovsky four times today.

The relatively quiet second period saw a 3-4 for the Russians, thanks to Anton Belov: two penalties inflicted to their opponents didn't have, anyways, dire consequencs.

During the last part of the game, Kazakhstan tried a comeback with Maxim Semyonow, but was quickly disillusioned by two beautiful goals by Anton Belov and Roman Lyubimov, who ultimately gave the victory to Russia. Belov in particular played an awesome game, signing two goals and an assist: the whole Russian team seemed to recover from the almost shocking defeat of two days ago, but Kazakhstan played nevertheless effectively and bravely, menacing to steal the final score to their rivals more than once. An interesting preview of what we will see on Tuesday, when they will take on Norway.

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