KHL-TV commentator and expert Andrey Yurtaev spoke on his telegram channel about a possible situation with legionnaires in Barys and the Kazakhstan national team, bbabo.net reports.

In his opinion, a Kazakhstani participant in the KHL can become attractive to strong Russian hockey players.

“I wonder if legionnaires will go to Barys next season? On the one hand, it seems to be Kazakhstan, and on the other, the league is still Russian.

If so, then they may even be almost the only team in the league with foreigners, and therefore significantly increase their chances of a strong performance next year. Well, at least they will be able to perform stronger than in this one.

And if not, then on the contrary, it can become a serious failure, because it will be difficult to play with the Kazakh squad against Russian teams, even without foreign players. Besides strong Kazakhs just Russian top clubs just can also rake out in the offseason.

In this situation, in fact, the IIHF can still help Barys if it does not return Russia to international competitions for a long time. In the meantime, we have not been taken away from the 2023 World Cup, because there is still hope for our recovery by this time. But if suddenly we find ourselves in sports and hockey isolation for years, then Barys may well attract Russian players to itself, giving them sports citizenship and the opportunity to participate in world championships.

Of course, they still do it now, but so far it only works with those who do not get into the Russian team. And if there is no further Russian team, then maybe the level of naturalized players for the Kazakhstan team will noticeably grow."

bbabo.Net