Just watched the yt feed for last exhibition game Vs Slovakia, some quick thoughts:
Goalies were solid: Berdin was confident, especially at the handling the puck, couldn't blame him for the goals too and Sukhachyov was the good ol' Sukhachyov I used to know - just stopped everything today including all of those 5 SO attempts. I'd go with them as #1 and #2.
D was a bit shaky, but not so bad after all. Samorukov was a bit error prone at defensive end, but contributed at the attack. Syomin played physical game of a very good quality, but still got an unnecessary penalty and also lost the battle at the second goal.
Maltsev's line was dynamic as always, couldn't produce though.
Rubtsov's line isn't hopeless, but still makes me wish for more: Abramov is playing too fancy, Sokolov doesn't look to be too comfortable at LW at all and Rubtsov got the goal on an individual effort, but didn't always remember that he is the most defensively gifted guy there.
Lipanov's line was not as good as I'd hope: Svechnikov can generate at the attack, got the goal, but the defensive game totally doesn't look to be there; Manukyan was good and hard working, got a nice assist on Svechnikov's goal, but you can still feel that he lacks that size for the small rinks. Lipanov looked lost, imo.
4th line was interesting: Kayumov was possibly the best player out there, extremely dangerous and dynamic. Kostin wasn't too good, but not exactly bad. Sholokhov is hard working and mobile, but again the size here is lacking. Ivanov replaced Sholokhov for the third period and I really liked him there in those few shifts, I'll be very dissapointed if he gets cut in the end, also because he is one of the rare guys out there who can park his big arsenal in front of the net.
Totally didn't like the PP, no proper thoughts and ideas out there.
So yeah, about the cuts, I guess 4 are almost certainly known, as they didn't play today (Alexeyev, Shepelev, Veryaev and Kravtsov), hard to tell who will be the fifth. Ivanov would be the obvious candidate as he was on the fifth line today, but he was very good in those limited shifts, also scored on the last game, so I kind of won't understand if Bragin will get rid of him especially considering that Sholokhov and Lipanov aren't looking exactly great.
Edit: Bragin told that 2 or 3 positions are undecided yet, so Alexeyev, Shepelev, Veryaev and Kravtsov might still have some hope.
