Dragons ready to face the World

10 May 2025

The IIHF World Championship gets underway Friday – and KRS fans can look out for a few familiar faces in Sweden and Denmark.

Although China remains some distance from the elite (last month, the national team won bronze in Division IB), two players on our 2024/25 roster will be suiting up at this year’s Worlds.

First is Slovenian forward Jan Drozg. He’s the only active KHLer on his country’s roster after picking up 18 (6+12) points from 33 games for the Dragons this term. The 26-year-old has been on Slovenia’s national team since 2018 and featured in its promotion campaign in 2024. His sole appearance at the top level came in 2023, where three goals in seven games were not enough to stave off relegation. Jan and his team-mates will be hoping to avoid going straight back down to Division – something Slovenia has not managed since 2005.

Drozg could be up against clubmate Patrik Rybar in his second game in Stockholm. Our goalie has been called up to Slovakia’s roster for the first time since 2022. That was a big year for Patrik as he backstopped the Olympic bronze medal campaign in Beijing. This will be Rybar’s fourth World Championship after making his debut in 2018. He’s likely to be competing with Adam Huska for the starting role between the piping on Vladimir Orszagh’s team. Last season the 31-year-old joined us from Spartak in December and had five wins in 15 games, including a memorable shut-out over CSKA on his debut.

There’s only one former Dragon due to play in this year’s championship. Czech defenseman Tomas Kundratek, now back in his homeland with Ocelari Trinec, is looking to help his country defend the gold it won on home ice a year ago. This will be his sixth World Championship. Kundratek, 35, wore the ‘A’ for KRS in 2018/19, playing 25 games and collecting six assists.

Kundratek played for the Dragons under head coach Jussi Tapola and the Finn is also involved in this year’s World Championship. He’s serving as assistant to head coach Antti Pennanen, marking the 50-year-old’s return to the national program for the first time since 2017/18. On that occasion, Finland fell in the quarter-finals and the Leijonat have suffered the same fate in the past two seasons. Pennanen and Tapola are tasked with reviving Finnish fortunes and heading back toward the heights of 2019-2022, which brought two gold and one silver, plus a first ever Olympic title.

Tapola also faces a coaching duel against another former KRS staffer. Ivano Zanatta, who was our head coach in 2021/22, is now working with Team France as assistant to Yorick Treille. The French have not reached a quarter-final since 2014 and suffered relegation in 2019. However, Les Bleus were reinstated in 2022 following the suspension of Russia and Belarus. Treille and Zanatta lead a new-look coaching staff this year after the departure of Philippe Bozon as head coach following last season’s 14^th-place finish.