Barys hockey club has officially unveiled its coaching staff for the upcoming Continental Hockey League season, according to infohub.kz.
Russian specialist Mikhail Kravec remains head coach for his second season. His assistant will once again be Kazakh coach Talgat Zhailauov, who led the Kazakh national team to an early promotion to the elite division of the World Championship in the Division I tournament in Poland this spring. Alexander Savchenkov is in charge of forwards, Evgeny Korolev trains the defensemen, and Konstantin Barulin handles the goaltenders. Denis Mikhailichenko and Igor Eliseev have been appointed as physical conditioning coaches, while Sergei Tambulov and Vladislav Belan will serve as video coaches.
Since July 17, training has already begun at Barys Arena for players on two-way contracts, allowing them to play for both Barys in the KHL and its farm club Nomad in the Kazakh championship. At the beginning of August, the main squad players will join them.
Barys will play its first pre-season match on August 17 in the Republic of Bashkortostan Cup in Ufa, facing local club Salavat Yulaev, Amur from Khabarovsk, and Lada from Tolyatti. On July 20, the full tournament schedule was announced. In the round-robin format, Barys will meet the hosts on August 17 at 7:00 PM Astana time. On August 18 at 3:00 PM, they take on Amur, and on August 20 at 1:00 PM, they face Lada. The Republic of Bashkortostan Cup has been held since 1999, with Salavat Yulaev winning the most titles (12), and Yaroslavl's Lokomotiv having won three times. This is Barys's second participation; in 2018, the team finished last in fourth place.
On August 27, the Astana-based club will start the second pre-season tournament in Saint Petersburg, the Puchkov Memorial Tournament, named after SKA and Soviet national team goaltender Nikolai Puchkov. Barys's opponents in this round-robin tournament will be SKA, its farm club SKA-VMF, and Amur from Khabarovsk. The winner will be determined by the highest number of points.