From 11 to 14 November in Helsinki, the first stage of the new hockey Eurotour will take place - the Karjala Cup.
The Russian national team will traditionally play one match with Finland, Sweden and the Czech Republic.
For the national team, this will be the first appearance in front of the fans since the May World Cup.
Over the past months, the national team has experienced many important events.
It has completely changed the coaching staff, which is now headed by Alexei Zhamnov.
He will prepare the team for the Beijing Olympics alongside his predecessor Alexei Kudashov, Sergei Gonchar and Yevgeny Nabokov, as well as NHL player relations manager Ilya Kovalchuk.
Less than a month ago, Zhamnov announced that he sets himself the goal of repeating the success of the previous Games and winning gold again.
However, all these specialists will begin their duties later, at the Channel One Cup in December.
And the youth team headed by Oleg Bratash will go to the Finnish stage of the Eurotour.
Despite the fact that there are less than three months before the Olympics, the Karjala Cup will again be used to prepare for the World U-20 Championship.
This scheme was already applied last year, when the Russian youth team was headed by Igor Larionov.
Young hockey players then made a splash, beating all their rivals, who had older players in their roster.
A year later, Larionov gave up his post to Bratash, and now he will arrange a difficult test at the Eurotour level for his charges.
At the same time, the specialist himself is confident that the Karjala Cup will give the players the opportunity to declare themselves not only on the scale of the youth team.
Some of his charges may even be able to go to Beijing.
“We are bringing a young squad to the upcoming tournament.
It has both applicants for participation in the youth world championship and candidates for the first team as well.
This will be a good test and preparation for the players.
We just got together, so the role of each member of the coaching staff is under discussion, ”Bratash explained at the press conference.
The national team now has a lot of young players, but not all of them will be able to go to Canada for the World Cup.
The oldest field hockey player will be Nikita Tertyshny.
The 23-year-old striker has had a very good season at Traktor and has scored 25 points in 28 games, almost making it to the top ten KHL scorers.
Dmitry Rashevsky from Dynamo Moscow, who turned 21 a month ago, is one point behind Tertyshny.
Another "veteran" Dmitry Voronkov will become the team captain. He already has experience playing for the main team, and he even scored six points at the last world championship in Riga. True, this season the Ak Bars striker is not as effective as in the past, and managed to score only three goals with four assists. The Karjala Cup could just help him to open up anew and in the future get, if not to the Games, then at least the next world championship after them.
Basically, the coaching staff of Bratash relies on the youth, and Matvey Michkov stands out among its representatives. The 16-year-old hockey player has long admired his talent and will now be able to formally debut in the main team. This season, he began to conquer the KHL and scored three points in ten matches for SKA, after which he returned to the youth team, but now he will again have a chance to play against adults. It will also be interesting to look at Shakir Mukhamadullin, selected in the last NHL draft under the overall 20-th number of New Jersey. At the age of 19, it is already impossible to imagine the defense of Salavat Yulaev without him.
As for the goalkeepers, Bratash has already announced that he will mainly rely on Yaroslav Askarov. He will be one of the few to play for the second time in a row in the Karjala Cup as part of the Russian national team. The goalkeeper showed phenomenal play last year, conceding an average of the puck per game, and is still eligible for youth challenge, so he will surely have a full load in Helsinki. In addition to Askarov, the team included more mature Timur Bilyalov and Vladimir Galkin, whom it makes little sense to check in the case because of too high competition at the adult level.
In the national teams of Sweden and the Czech Republic, they also do not seriously think about preparing for the Olympics.
These teams recruited players from the national championships to the Karjala Cup, almost never using the services of legionnaires.
But Finland approached the home stage of the Eurotour with all seriousness.
Suffice it to say that Vityaz leaders Niko Oyamyaki and Miro Aaltonen will play for her, having scored 57 points for two in the new season.
The Russians will play their first match with the hosts of the tournament, and they will have to try to cope with the pressure.
And in case of failure, do not succumb to negative emotions during the day of rest.
As the practice of last year has shown, the Russian youth team is not used to shaking up and can impose their will on any opponent.