2025 World Juniors: Top standouts as Germany beats Kazakhstan in relegation game
OTTAWA – In one of the tightest games of the World Juniors, Germany beat Kazakhstan 4-3 to advance to the 2026 World Junior Championship and avoid relegation.
With the loss, Kazakhstan will be replaced by Denmark in Minnesota next year, with the Kazakhs heading to the Division IA tournament in December.
The game started off strong for Kazakhstan, who had a 2-1 lead after 20 minutes. Assanali Ruslanuly and Nikita Sitnikov both scored, with Maxim Schafer splitting the difference for Germany. Artur Gross then gave Kazakhstan a two-goal advantage early in the second when he scored on the rush at 22:02.
That advantage wouldn’t last for long, though, as Schafer would score his second of the night just under two minutes later before Edwin Tropmann added a power-play goal at 24:19. Julius Sumpf would give Germany its first lead of the game in the third period, also capitalizing on the man advantage.
Here’s a look at the top performers from Thursday’s action:
Kazakhstan
#19 Beibarys Orazov, D (Undrafted): The 6-foot-2 defender has caught my eye over the past few days. Orazov was the catalyst for the 1-0 goal, stealing the puck before finding Assanali Ruslanuly on the rush. He also didn’t make many mistakes around the Kazakh net beyond a second-period penalty. This game was the most engaged I’ve seen him.
#70 Semyon Simonov, LW (Undrafted): Simonov didn’t have a point but he was Kazakhstan’s most active shot generator. I thought he had decent speed, especially through the middle of the ice, to put himself into a scoring position.
Germany
#20 Maxim Schafer, LW (2025 NHL Draft): While Canada’s Matthew Schaefer is out for the tournament with an injury, Maxim Schafer found a way to steal the spotlight today among players with similar names. Schafer scored twice, starting with the 1-1 goal at 4L41 and against on the two-man advantage early in the second. The 6-foot-4 forward has an excellent shot, but hadn’t scored a goal heading into today. He was easily Germany’s best player as he kept the pressure on every time he hit the offensive zone.
#26 Julius Sumpf, C (Undrafted): Sumpf ended his tremendous tournament with an impressive three-point effort. He assisted on the second and third German goals on the power play before scoring his own to win the game in the third. Sumpf had seven points in five games to lead Germany, just as many expected he would heading into his second World Juniors.
#22 Edwin Tropmann, D (Undrafted): After entering the tournament with zero goals in the DEL and just two points in the second-tier league, Tropmann finished the tourney with three points in his final two games. That includes a goal and an assist on the power play today to help complete the comeback. Tropmann played over 20 minutes most nights and was a steady presence on a blueline that had quite a few holes.
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