A little more than a week remains until the start of the Ukrainian national hockey team at the World Championship in Division IA.
Last year, before the match with Japan, it was believed that for the first time since 2007, the “blue-yellow” were about two and a half hours away from returning to the elite: under certain circumstances, even a defeat in overtime or a series of shootouts was enough for the Ukrainians.
However, the “samurai”, who no longer had tournament motivation, proved that the result is not the only thing that matters. The main thing is the way. The strongest team in Asia won in regular time and deprived Ukraine of a ticket to the top division.
Now let’s find out how the Ukrainian hockey players spent the season, on whose shoulders will lie a new attempt to rise to the elite.
Expanded composition of the national team of Ukraine for the 2026 World Cup
The head coach of the “blue-yellow” Dmytro Hristych called 32 hockey players: 4 goalkeepers, 11 defenders and 17 forwards.
Goalkeepers: Bohdan Dyachenko (Polonia Bytom, Poland), Oleg Petrov (Sokil, Ukraine), Serhiy Pisarenko (Varese, Italy), Oleksandr Levshin (Prince George Cougars, Canada).
Defenders: Ihor Merezhko (Plzen, Czech Republic), Artem Grebenyk (Caen, France), Volodymyr Volkov (Gladiators Trnava, Slovakia), Denis Matusevych (Kremenchuk, Ukraine), Oleksiy Dakhnovsky (Kosice, Slovakia), Yevhen Ratushny (Sokil, Ukraine), Ivan Sisak (Feltre, Italy), Mykola Kosarev (Stavanger Oilers, Norway), Hleb Petrov (Plzen U20, Czech Republic), Ivan Korodyuk (Bowling Green State University, USA), Artur Cholac (Henderson Silver Knights, USA).
Attackers: Oleksandr Peresunko (Unia, Poland), Daniil Tracht (Lukko, Finland), Andriy Deniskin (Torun, Poland), Oleksiy Vorona (Torun, Poland), Vitaly Lyalka (Kremenchuk, Ukraine), Stanislav Sadovikov (Berani Zlin, Czech Republic), Hilarion Kupriyanov (Dukla Jihlava, Czech Republic), Yevhen Fadeev (Snackpoint Eaters Limburg, Netherlands), Mykhailo Simchuk (Trinity Western University, Canada), Felix Morozov (Morzine-Avoriaz, France), Viktor Zakharov (Sokil, Ukraine), Denys Borodai (Sokil, Ukraine), Mykyta Oliynyk (Sokil, Ukraine), Artem Buzoverya (Coventry Blaze, Great Britain), Oleksiy Yevtekhov (Pardubice B, Czech Republic), Ilya Shibinskyi (Guelph Storm, Canada), Bohdan Panasenko (GAP, France).
The final application will consist of 25 performers, so seven hockey players will have to be selected from this roster. Since the coaching staff has not made personnel decisions yet, we will remember everyone.
Goalkeepers
Bohdan Dyachenko – the best goalkeeper of the 2025 World Cup – decided to try himself abroad for the first time at the adult level. This decision turned out to be successful both for him and for Polonia Bytom.
The Ukrainian became the undisputed first number of the team. In the rather competitive Polish championship, the club took seventh place and was eliminated in the quarterfinals. Dyachenko played 34 matches, hitting 91.3% of shots – eighth in the league. At the same time, it is worth considering that many competitors stood for stronger teams and had less workload. Among the top 10, only Karolus Kaarlehto had more shots on goal.
Bohdan approaches the World Cup with excellent game practice, so he looks like the main goalkeeper of the national team.
Oleksandr Levshinwill probably get his chance as well. The 19-year-old goalkeeper spent a season with the Prince George Cougars, a club of one of the strongest junior leagues in North America (WHL).
Yes, he was Joshua Ravensberg’s backup. First, the Canadian is a top prospect (#30 in the 2025 NHL draft). Secondly, their statistical indicators do not have a significant difference, which speaks in favor of the Ukrainian.
33-year-old Oleg Petrov confirmed his class as part of Sokol, becoming a key figure in the playoffs of the championship of Ukraine. In nine matches (four of them – “to zero”), he missed only 8 goals, demonstrating an impressive percentage of blocked shots – 95.8%.
Serhiy Pysarenkowho is four years younger, played in Italy for the second season in a row. He was also regularly involved in European Cup of Nations matches (conceived 5 goals in three games).
Regardless of the final choice of the coaches, both goaltenders are able to fulfill the role of the third option with quality, and when given the opportunity to go on the ice.
Protection
This line also has players without whom it is difficult to imagine the national team. Ihor Merezhko has been serving as a captain for several years and consistently confirms his level at the club level, playing for Pilsen in the strong Czech championship.
His team took second place in the regular season, and Merezhko himself was an important figure on the ice (5 goals + 12 assists in 51 games). However, in the playoffs Pilsen lost to Sparta in seven matches, so it is unlikely that the season can be considered completely successful at the club level. At the same time, it can become additional motivation at the national team level.
Last year, he was his partner in the first pair of defense Ivan Sisak – one of the few trainees of Novoyavoriv hockey (together with Yevhen Ratushny) in the national team.
This season, he changed the championship of Hungary to the second division of Italy, where, in addition to traditional strength work (forechecking, fighting with the corps), he noticeably added to the game with partners (6 goals + 24 assists in 32 matches).
Pair No. 2 was made last year Artem Grebenyk and PiLip Pangelov-Yuldashev. This year there will be no such combination, because the latter did not enter the list of 32 and remained in the nearest reserve.
Pylyp spent a productive season in the Slovakian club Dubnytsia (9 goals + 29 assists in 48 matches). However, it is worth considering the level of the league – this is the second division, and the team itself finished only sixth among thirteen participants.
In addition, Pangelov-Yuldashev celebrated his 32nd anniversary this year. It is possible that head coach Dmytro Hristych is gradually preparing to rejuvenate the team. For the same reason, Philip’s peer got into the reserve – Oleksiy Yanishevskyi from Sokol (5 matches at the 2025 World Cup). Moreover, the change looks quite promising to these experienced performers.
21-year-old Oleksiy Dakhnovsky was a player of the main team of Košice (2 + 1 in 52 matches). The statistics are modest, but it is important to consider the context: his club is the current champion of Slovakia, which in the 2025/26 season reached the semifinals, where it lost to Slovan (2-4 in the series). Slovan himself is currently leading in the finals (2-1), so the contribution of even the players of the lower ranks, to which the Ukrainian belongs, should not be underestimated.
The 18-year-old also looks powerful Mykola Kosarev. The captain of the youth team did not stay in North America and in the middle of the season returned to the Norwegian Stavanger, for which he played since the beginning of the full-scale invasion of Russia. Despite his young age, the defender was an important element in the composition of the national champion (4 + 1 in 19 matches).
Artem Grebenyk not much older than young partners (23 years old). For the second season in a row, he plays in the second strongest division of France. His Kahn (9 + 22 in 39 matches from the Ukrainian) is currently playing in the final series, so the hockey player has not yet joined the national team. There are reasons to believe that the 22-year-old will be in the application along with him Volodymyr Volkov – 2 + 7 in 39 matches of the second division of Slovakia for TEBS Bratislava.
Volkov did not make it to the World Cup last year, but made his debut for the national team in 2023. Since then, he has played 22 matches: he has not scored a goal yet, but he has 5 assists.
The 20-year-old is also in the extended lineup Hleb Petrov and 22-year-old Ivan Korodyukwho has been playing in the US college and junior hockey system since 2019. If there is almost no doubt that Kosarev and Dakhnovsky will be included in the final application, then one of this pair (or possibly both) risks being left out of the final squad. At the same time, the very fact of participating in the meeting and training with more experienced partners is a valuable experience.
The Ukrainian championship will be represented by one of the leaders of Kremenchuk Denis Matusevich (the most effective defender of the championship) and Evgeny Town Hall. The latter moved from the “Storm” to the Sokol shortly before the playoffs and became one of the key players of the postseason: 7 goals + 12 assists in 9 matches.
The return is also positive Artur Cholac. He is the only Ukrainian selected in the NHL draft in the last 19 years (#190 in 2021). The defenseman currently straddles the AHL and ECHL levels, playing for the Henderson Silver Knights and Tahoe Knight Monsters, organizations within the Vegas Golden Knights (NHL) system.
Attackers
Last year, Viktor Zakharov and Andriy Deniskin became the most productive players not only of the national team of Ukraine, but also of the entire IIHF World Championship Division I tournament.
There is no doubt about their place in the team. Moreover, both had a strong club season: Zakharov – 29 + 31 in 36 matches for Sokil, Deniskin – 19 + 29 in 37 matches for Toruń.
Denys Borodai (16 + 21 in 31 matches for Sokil) and Daniil Trakht, who played the role of key partners for the leaders last year, will probably remain in the team. Tracht played a few matches in the top division of Finland during the season (1 goal in 4 games), but played most of the time in the second league – 8 + 14 in 38 matches for TUTTO.
It is difficult to imagine the national team without Vitaly Lyalka, despite the fact that his season was uneven and was accompanied by certain scandalous moments.
On the other hand, the chances of another representative of the national championship – Nikita Oliynyk – look more modest. At the age of 27, he received a call-up to the national team for the first time (previously he had not even participated in the Eurocup of Nations matches).
Oleksandr Peresunko (26 + 24 in 53 matches for Union) and Oleksii Vorona (10 + 23 in 45 matches for Toruń) have been prominent figures in the Polish league for several years now and are regularly included in the final squad.
It is also worth noting the “Czech paratroopers”: Ilarion Kupriyanov, Stanislav Sadovikov and Oleksiy Yevtekhov. All three play in the second division of the Czech Republic. Kupriyanov (14 + 12) helped Dukli Yihlava win the Maxi Liga (53 matches). Sadovikov (9 + 6) played 63 matches for Berani Zlin – his team made its way from the play-in to the final, where it lost to Kupriyanova’s club in seven matches.
20-year-old Yevtekhov has more modest figures (2 + 4 in 19 matches for Dynamo Pardubice B), but he has already made his debut for the main team, scoring a puck in a single match. Dynamo is a giant of the local league. This club had four hockey players in the Czech team at the 2026 Olympics.
Felix Morozov (12 + 23 in 34 matches) was a key player for Morzine-Avoriaz in the second division of France. Bohdan Panasenko (5 + 18 in 23 matches) played in the elite of the French championship, where he helped Gap to keep its place in the league.
Evgeny Fadeev showed almost two points per game (21 + 58 in 42 matches). At the same time, the level of the Dutch-Belgian league, where Limburg plays, is difficult to compare with the leading European championships. It is not a fact that it is even stronger than the Ukrainian one. It is already known that the forward will play for Polonia next season, where he will become Dyachenko’s teammate.
Another representative of the atypical championship is Artem Buzoverya. After performances in North America, he moved to the British “Coventry Blaze”, and in February made his debut for the national team. His physical data (194 cm, 101 kg) can become an important factor in the fight on the ice.
Ilya Shibinsky and Mykhailo Simchuk are the leaders of the youth team. Their challenge looks logical, but the chances of getting into the final application are few at the moment.
When the tournament
The World Championship in Division 1A will take place from May 2 to 8 in Sosnowiec, Poland. The national team of Ukraine will compete for entry to the elite division in matches against Poland, Japan, Lithuania, Kazakhstan and France.
The first two places will receive a ticket to the elite. The last step – relegation to Division IB.
Where to watch
“Suspilne Sport” is the official broadcaster of matches of the Ukrainian national team. The matches will also be available for viewing on the FHU YouTube channel.
