Khrystych’s master plan

Every year, there seems to be one team out of the bunch at the IIHF World Championship Division I Group A tournament that exceeds expectations. Last year, Romania was expected to be in a tough battle to avoid relegation but instead just missed being promoted on a tiebreaker. Two years ago it was Poland, which was promoted immediately after coming up from Group B.

This year, two games in at least, that team is Ukraine. Ranked 27th in the world, the Ukrainians opened their schedule against the tournament’s two top-ranked teams, taking both to shootouts – a 4-3 loss to Great Britain followed by a 3-2 win over Italy.

“We played with a team that just came down from the top division and we played evenly with them,” Ukrainian head coach Dmytro Khrystych said after the team’s opener against Great Britain, but he could have said the same after the Italian game. “That’s our goal for right now: get to this level and stay here, and advance if possible, but maybe that’s more for the future.”