Published 23.04.2015 23:46 GMT+2 | Author Martin Merk

Kazakhstan returns to the top division for the 2016 IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship after the fourth win in the fourth game, 3-2 against host Poland.

Roman Starchenko was Kazakhstan’s man of the match. He scored the 2-1 goal and after Poland had tied it was him, who scored the game-winning goal with less than five minutes to go in regulation time.

“It was a difficult game with individual mistakes that led to the goals. After the first period the coach made some changes and they turned out well,” Starchenko summarized. “Unfortunately we lost Polishuk due to a knee injury and had to change lines. It was a hard-fought win.”

Thanks to the result Kazakhstan won the 2015 IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship Division I Group A already before the last round on Saturday no matter of the outcome of the last game against Italy.

Host Poland and Hungary will battle for second place in the tournament and to determine the other team promoted to the 2016 Worlds in Moscow and St. Petersburg, Russia. Hungary needs a victory against Poland or at least one point from an overtime/shootout loss to defend second place while host Poland needs a regulation-time win to overtake the Hungarians on the last day.

“It was a good game. We were a little bit lucky but we accept the luck and are happy,” Kazakhstan head coach Andrei Nazarov said.

Asked about the reason why Kazakhstan was so strong during most of the tournament he replied with a smile “good coaching” before adding: “The guys play well and they do what they are asked for and I’m happy they listen to me.”

Already from the beginning of the game it was clear that the time of easy wins was over for Kazakhstan as the Polish host team came out determined, physical and with the clear task to avoid mistakes the Kazakhs proved to capitalize on with ease in their first three games of the tournament.