According to the document, 11 players visited by RUSADA’s doping-control officers included Russian hockey stars Ilya Kovalchuk (NHL Los Angeles Kings), Nikita Kucherov (NHL Tampa Bay Lightning) and Evgeni Malkin (NHL Pittsburgh Penguins).

MOSCOW, May 16. /TASS/. Doping-control officers from the Russian Anti-Doping Agency (RUSADA) tested 11 players from the national ice hockey team ahead of the 2019 IIHF World Championship, RUSADA stated in a document obtained by TASS on Thursday.

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The other players were goalkeepers Alexander Georgiyev and Andrei Vasilvesky, defensemen Nikita Nesterov and Mikhail Sergachev, forwards Yevgeny Dadonov, Mikhail Grigorenko, Ivan Telegin and Nikita Gusev.

The IIHF press service announced to TASS on Tuesday that players of all national teams participating in the 2019 IIHF World Championship underwent tests for banned performance enhancing drugs and all doping samples tested negative.

The 2019 IIHF World Championship is hosted by Slovakia between May 10 and 26. The participating teams were divided into Groups A and B. Group A is playing matches in Slovakia’s Kosice and includes hosts Slovakia, Canada, the United States, Finland, Germany, Denmark, France and Great Britain.

Group B is playing matches in Bratislava and enlists teams from Sweden, Russia, the Czech Republic, Switzerland, Norway, Latvia, Austria and Italy.

Russia currently tops its Group B with 12 points and is scheduled to play next match against Latvia on May 18.

Slovakia offers two venues for hosting matches of the championship and they are the country’s capital of Bratislava and the country’s second largest city of Kosice. Each city hosts 28 matches of the group stage as well as two quarterfinals.

The semifinals, the final and the match for the bronze will be played in Bratislava at the over 10,000-seat capacity Ondrej Nepela Arena. Kosice, which has a population of 240,000, offers the over 8,300-seat capacity Steel Arena.