Kazakhstan had already secured first place at the 2026 IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship Division I Group A in Sosnowiec, Poland – and promotion to the 2027 World Championship in Germany – by defeating Ukraine in a shootout on Thursday. However, there was still one more promotional spot to be determined, with France, Ukraine and Poland all in contention. As well, the matter of relegation to Division I Group B was still to be decided between Japan and Lithuania.
As each game finished, the situation became a little clearer.
Results of Day 5:
- Kazakhstan over France 2-1 in a shootout,
- Ukraine over Japan 3-1,
- Lithuania over Poland 2-1 in overtime.
Kazakhstan 2 – France 1 SO (0-0, 0-0, 1-1, 0-0, 1-0)
Kazakhstan had already secured first place but this game was critically important to France. However, it was Kazakhstan that seemed to play with more urgency in the first period, outshooting France 16-3. However, Antoine Keller stood tall in the French goal, and the game remained scoreless.
“We’ve all got a job to do, and I try to give my team a chance to win,” said Keller, who stopped 29 of 30 shots in 65 minutes.
“I feel like we didn’t put enough on the ice and we left ourselves in a bad spot at the end of the tournament,” said Keller. “Even if we’d won in regulation time, we’d still have to wait for the other teams to finish. I think we put ourselves in that position.
“We didn’t win today, so I think we’re in a pretty bad spot right now.”
“It’s a good thing we won and ended our season on a high note,” said Kazakh defenceman Dmitriy Breus. “Everyone was ready to play.”
The second period was played much more conservatively, without many scoring chances either way, save for a goalpost hit by Kazakh defenceman Tamirlan Gaitamirov.
France began pushing more offensively early in the third and finally scored at 45:17. Andrey Shutov made a save off of Valentin Grossetete’s point shot, but the rebound got away from him and a diving Aurelien Dair managed to get his stick on it and knock it over the goal line.
A regulation win would have been huge for France, but Kazakhstan tied it midway through the third on a blast from the point by Breus that finally beat Keller.
“I was on a change, I just went on the ice and there was a good set-up by 14 on our team (Eduard Mikhailov), so thanks to him, it was a good goal,” Breus smiled. “Scoring a tying goal in the third period’s like the best goal you can score, I think.”
Knowing a regulation win would greatly improve their chances of promotion, the French pulled Keller for an extra attacker late in regulation time, but were unable to get the win. The game was ultimately settled in a shootout, where captain Roman Starchenko scored twice for Kazakhstan.
Ukraine 3 – Japan 1 (3-1, 0-0, 0-0)
With a lot riding on the game, the Japanese exploded out of the gate and outshot Ukraine 7-2 over the first 10 minutes. Just past the midway point of the period, they opened the scoring. Right off an attacking-zone faceoff win by Teruto Nakadzhima, Yu Sato made a behind-the-back pass to Ray Murakami, whose one-timer from the point found room just inside the far post.
“It was a good start, but one goal, you can’t win many games,” said Sato. “We got chances, but we just don’t have enough players who can finish them.”
Ukraine woke up late in the first period and scored three times in a span of 4:15 to take control of the game.
Olexander Peresunko tied it on a snipe from the slot that beat Issa Otsuka to the glove side, Olexi Dakhnovsky gave Ukraine the lead, tapping in a backdoor pass from Danil Trakht off a 3-on-2 rush, and then Trakht gave his team a two-goal lead when he took a nice feed from Olexi Vorona and beat Otsuka to the blocker side.
“It was a bit of a sleepy start from us, but luckily we have a goalie who can keep us in games, and then we realized it’s an important game and started playing with the puck and making the right decisions, and we got rewarded,” said Trakht.
In typical fashion, Ukraine locked down the remainder of the game, with no further scoring and few quality chances, despite attempts by Japan to push for more offence and squeeze out another point in the fight to avoid relegation. Over the last 40 minutes, the shots were only 15-9 in Japan’s favour, with Ukraine often satisfied to rag the puck for long stretches – including over a minute on a delayed penalty.
Chants of “U-kra-yi-na!” from the Ukrainian fans in attendance rained down as the final seconds ticked away. With the end of this game, the fate of both teams rested with Poland and Lithuania.
“Nothing we can do but support Lithuania,” Trakht shrugged.
“We wanted to win this game and secure our place in this division on our own,” said Sato. “But we’ll see how Poland does. All we can do is watch. That’s it.”
Poland 1 – Lithuania 2 OT (0-1, 1-0, 1-0, 0-1)
Lithuania scored the only goal of an evenly-played first period. On the power play, following a faceoff win in the attacking zone and a couple of passes, Paulius Gintautas ripped a shot from the top of the circle that beat Tomas Fucik to the blocker side.
“We already knew they were going to go forward with the puck,” said centre Ugnius Cizas, who was on the faceoff. “We worked so much on the power play the last six weeks and it paid off this tournament.”
“We had a good tournament, then we had the last game with everything in our hands against a team we beat twice in a row before the tournament, and we give up a goal on the PK after only six seconds,” said a disbelieving Aron Chmielewski.
As the second period wore on, the scale began to tip towards Poland. As he had all tournament, Faustas Nauseda made several key stops for Lithuania but he couldn’t prevent the tying goal late in the second. Aron Chmielewski sent a bouncing puck on goal that Nauseda stopped but couldn’t cover. Kamil Walega got the rebound and fed it to Patryk Krezolek, who chipped the puck into the roof of the net with 2:01 left in the middle frame, causing the Sosnowiec fans to explode in relief.
But a tied score suited Lithuania just fine, and as the minutes ticked away, the Polish fans grew increasingly nervous as their team had trouble mounting much sustained offensive pressure.
With under three minutes to play, Chmielewski led a rush into the Lithuanian zone that led to several chances, but Lithuanian defenders threw their bodies in front of shots. Fucik went to the bench for an extra attacker, a shot at the empty net went off a stick and bounced off the top of the net, and finally Poland got a power play with 29.5 seconds left.
“We tried to push everything to the net,” said Chmielewski. “We weren’t trying to score beautiful goals. We were just trying to get pucks to the net and find a rebound, find some way to score that second goal, but we didn’t find it. I'm so angry, I don't even know what to say about it.”
But the goal never came. As the horn sounded to end regulation time, the Lithuanian players celebrated on the ice, and Ukrainian players excitedly ran through the concourse of the arena, as they were headed up.
“I feel more emotions right now than when we got promoted, and now we’re staying in the division and it feels so, so good,” said Lithuanian forward Ugnius Cizas. “We could have won more games this year, we were in every game. Overall, we had one bad period against Japan.”
The fates of both teams were already decided, but Ilja Cetvertak drove the final dagger into the hearts of the Polish team and fans in overtime, scoring on a wraparound that just dribbled through the pads of Fucik and across the goal line.
Final Standings:
1. Kazakhstan – 13 points (promoted to 2027 IIHF World Championship)
2. Ukraine – 10 points (promoted to 2027 IIHF World Championship)
3. France – 8 points
4. Poland – 8 points
5. Lithuania – 4 points
6. Japan – 2 points (relegated to 2027 IIHF World Championship Division I Group B)