In their first game of the 2021 IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship, Kazakhstan beat host Latvia 3-2 following a seven-round penalty shootout. It was a game that was without much excitement for two periods but picked up in the third period, leading to an exciting finish.
“I’m happy that we managed to win it today,” said 22-year-old Kazakh netminder Nikita Boyarkin after his World Championship debut. “It was a very tough game, very tense, especially when it went to a shootout, which is always nerve-wracking for a goalie.”
Roman Starchenko, the captain and long-time veteran of the Kazakh national team and Barys Nur-Sultan in the KHL, scored the shootout-winning goal and assisted on the team's first goal.
“It was a tough game,” said Starchenko. “We haven’t played together for a couple of months, but we knew that Latvia had a hard game yesterday, they used up a lot of energy and emotion against Canada. So we knew we had to play active from the start, to take the game to them.”
Despite the loss, Latvia's hero again was goaltender Matiss Kivlenieks. A night after a stunning shutout of Canada, he carried his team into the shootout despite being outshot 31-14 through 65 minutes of hockey.
“Looking at the way that he played, I think he was pretty good,” said Latvian head coach Bob Hartley when questioned about starting the 24-year-old Columbus Blue Jackets prospect two nights in a row. “In our society, some people work 50-60 hours a week, so what’s the problem? He basically didn’t play all year. He wants to play and last night he was sensational for us.”
A day after their stunning 2-0 opening-night victory over Canada, this is a bitter pill to swallow for the Latvians, who must feel like they squandered two of the three points they stole last night in their quest for a quarter-final berth. For Kazakhstan, it was a satisfying way to open the tournament.
“The guys showed character, courage and heroism,” said Kazakh head coach Yuri Mikhailis. ”From the first minute they tried to put Latvia under pressure.”
“I think it was pretty clear that our second game in two nights, they were the fresher team, they skated much better than us,” said Hartley. “They jammed us in our zone in the first period but then we got back the momentum. Even though we were in our zone, we didn’t give them many looks at the net and we were able to box them out.”
The scoreless tie was finally broken in the 28th minute and it was a grinding goal, with Kaspars Daugavins doing a good job to feed a pass in front while being knocked to the ice and then Lauris Darzins taking a couple of whacks at the bouncing puck in the slot, finally banging it home.
While there is theoretically no attendance at these World Championship games in Riga, a couple hundred accredited off-duty volunteers and staff were scattered around the arena’s upper and lower bowls to watch this game and let out a collective cheer when the puck finally went in.
But after the goal, the Kazakhs started to push back, generate some chances, and concern Hartley enough that he called a timeout with 2:14 to go in the middle frame. Just 30 seconds after play resumed, however, Uvis Balinskis was called for tripping, and on the ensuing power play, Kazakhstan cashed in.
Starchenko orchestrated the goal by carrying the puck down from the point. That caused the Latvian box to break down, and he then fed Alexander Shin in the slot for a one-timer that beat Kivlenieks with 1:01 to play in the period.
“This is the way they play,” Hartley said of the Kazakh team. “They’re a good pressure team. They’re a big, physical team. We were ready but our puck movement wasn’t good enough and they got us back on our heels, so credit to them.”
With the score now tied, the Kazakhs continued to press early in the third period, and four minutes in, Kivlenieks made a huge glove save off No. 14 Curtis Valk, who fired a one-timer from the slot, getting a good cheer from the volunteers. Things were heating up.
“I can’t say anything bad about the way he played,” said Latvian defenceman Uvis Balinskis. “He was really focused in the game and helped us out of a lot of problem times.”
Thirty seconds later, the Latvians retook the lead when their No. 14, Rihards Bukarts, was sprung on a breakaway by defenceman Oskars Cibulskis and made a nice little fake to open Boyarkin’s five-hole and slid it home. The cheer let out by the volunteers put the previous ones to shame.
But what was once a defensive struggle was now a wide-open affair, and it took Kazakhstan a mere 12 seconds to tie it back up. From a mad scramble in the crease in which Kivlenieks tried in vain to cover the moving puck and his defencemen tried in vain to clear it, Jesse Blacker finally fired it past the sprawling netminder.
“Kazakhstan was very hard to play against,” said Cibulskis. “They defended well and they pressured us. It was a hard game for us, but we were battling the whole game. Maybe we should have gotten at least two points, but it is what it is.”
If he hadn’t already used his timeout, Hartley surely would have after another goalmouth scramble a short time later that seemed to last forever. The puck disappeared under piles of players, then reappeared as bodies sprawled in the slot, blocking shots, sticks flying everywhere, and finally the zone was cleared, allowing everyone to exhale.
But although the play on the ice calmed down somewhat after a few wild and woolly minutes, everyone in the building got the sense that this was a big game despite how early it was in the tournament.
In overtime, Daugavins drove to the net but his stick inadvertently struck Boyarkin in the mask, which drew a high-sticking penalty. The Latvian captain desperately tried to plead his case that his stick had been lifted, but to no avail. He went hopelessly to the penalty box as his team faced a 4-on-3 kill. But they made it out alive, with the Latvian triangle keeping the Kazakhstan shooters to the outside, and Kivlenieks remaining cool as a cucumber and square to the shooters.
“I’m grateful to the guys, it’s a team of real men,” Mikhailis concluded. “We knew that Latvia had a hard game yesterday and they put a lot of emotion into it. That gave us an advantage, not just physically but psychologically.”
Up next for Kazakhstan is Finland tomorrow, while Latvia faces Italy on Monday.
