With senior players unavailable, head coach Dave Lewis hopes his youngsters can
avoid a relegation battle in Copenhagen.
When the head coach admits that results could be ‘mixed' in an upcoming tournament, it's a sure sign that there are potential problems in the roster. For Belarus, stripped of the experience of the Kostitsyn brothers and missing last year's captain Andrei Stas, 2018 is starting to feel like a year of consolidation with a youthful new roster. Goals look likely to be a problem for
Dave Lewis' team and the local media is looking anxiously at avoiding relegation rather than pushing for a playoff place.
Goalies
Mikhail Karnaukhov of Dynamo Minsk is set to be the #1 for Belarus here, especially after Kevin Lalande retired during the season due to injury problems. However, Ivan Kulbakov, of Quad City Mallards, could be an interesting alternative: the 21-year-old has earned his first World Championship call after some solid form in the ECHL. Vitali Trus is set to complete the trio.
Defence
Typically, Belarusian players cut their teeth in the Dynamo Minsk system and graduate through the KHL. Pavel Vorobei followed a different path. He headed to
China to play for Kunlun Red Star, and made a big impact in his first season there. Oriental success helped cement the 20-year-old's place on the national team, and his pairing with Dynamo's Dmitri Korobov is the only one that has generated scoring from the blue line in the last six games for Belarus. In a youthful roster, Vorobei could be a stand-out performer. Ilya Sushko and Vladislav Yeryomenko are two other prospects to note, while Yevgeni Lisovets, still only 23, could be playing a big role at his fourth Worlds.
Forwards
Yegor Sharangovich was one of the brighter features of a disappointing season for Dynamo Minsk. The 19-year-old was a regular in Gordie Dwyer's KHL roster and looks ready to build on his World Championship debut last season. However, he's still a raw prospect and cannot be expected to shoulder the burden of leading his country's scoring. With the likes of Geoff Platt and Charles Linglet in indifferent form and the experienced Andrei Stepanov absent once again, there's a gap to be filled if Belarus is going to find the net regularly.
It was a similar story last time, with Belarus shut out twice and mustering just 15 goals in seven games. The experienced Alexander Pavlovich got four of those and the Dinamo Minsk captain could be a key man again this time around. Artyom Levsha and Artyom Kisly, both key players in Neman Grodno's Belarusian title campaign, could be among the wildcards on the roster this time around.
Coaching
Dave Lewis is a familiar figure behind the bench for Belarus: the former Red Wings and Bruins head coach is about to take charge of his fourth World Championship campaign with the team. His best result came in his debut season when he took the team to the quarter-finals in 2015. Since then, he's faced a tricky task negotiating a change from one generation to the next and trying to unearth the leaders who can take the team forward in the coming years. This season's emphasis on youth - in total eight skaters involved in the recent Euro
Challenge games were aged 22 or under - suggests the time has come for several prospects to start delivering on their potential.
Projected results
The leading Belarusian sports title, Pressball, was blunt in its assessment: Belarus can never hope to match Russia, Sweden or the Czechs; right now, even allowing for a lack of NHL input for Slovakia, it can't compete with the Slovaks or Swiss. This is a race for sixth place against France and Austria. More than usual, the stakes are high. Relegation would be a huge headache for the 2021 co-host. It's likely that Lewis will have picked out the 5th May meeting with France - winners in a shoot-out in Paris a year ago - and a potentially nerve-jangling clash with the Austrians in the penultimate group game on 12 May as the key encounters in this year's championship.
ANDY POTTS
http://
--- SBBSecho 3.04-Win32
* Origin: TequilaMockingbird Online - Toms River, NJ (1:266/404)