GERMAN WIN SENDS KAZAKHSTAN DOWN...AGAIN IIHF 2025 World Junior Championship

Julius Sumpf scored a power-play goal at 4:03 of the third period to break a 3-3 tie and send Germany to a 4-3 win over Kazakhstan today in the relegation game. The win keeps Germany in the top pool for next year (Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota) and sends the Kazakhs down to Division I-A for 2026, where they played last year.

The last time these nations faced each other in a similar scenario was in 2020 when they played a best-of-three relegation series. The Germans won the deciding game, 6-0.

Kazakhstan got off to the start it wanted, opening the scoring at 4:33 after creating a turnover at centre ice. Assanali Ruslanuly fired a bullet over the glove of Linus Vieillard in the slot to make it 1-0.

The lead didn’t last long. Eight seconds, to be exact. Germany brought the puck into the offensive zone off the ensuing faceoff and Nick Maul took a quick shot that Vladimir Nikitin couldn’t handle. It bounced off the leg of Maxim Schafer to tie the game.

Teams played a more conservative style most of the period, knowing the skates couldn’t be higher, but Kazakhstan managed to go ahead late on a clever play by Nikita Sitnikov. The play started when Artur Gross claimed a puck that bounced over a German’s stick, giving him a breakaway. He fired wide, but Sitnikov got the puck to the side of the goal and banked a shot in off the pad of Vieillard at 17:46.

The Kazakhs took a two-goal lead early in the second on a goal by Gross that was similar to Ruslanuly’s. He took a pass in the slot from Kirill Kankin and fired a shot over Vieillard’s glove at 2:02.

The course of the game changed soon after, however, when Kazakhstan incurred tow quick penalties, giving Germany a two-skater advantage for 1:44. They connected on both ends of the double chance, the first coming only 12 seconds after the five-on-three started. Schafer was at it again in front, this time making a nice tip of a Julius Sumpf shot to make it 3-2.

Sumpf rattled a shot off the post seconds later, but Germany tied the game 21 seconds after Schafer’s goal. This time Edwin Tropmann’s long shot went the distance, tying the game at 4:19.

And as in the first, after this flurry of goals that left the game all square, teams reverted to a more cautious approach, once again aware of the importance of the result.