U20 Worlds: Levin scores three again as Israel cruises past Kyrgyzstan

Israel moved one step closer to its ultimate goal of capturing gold at the 2024 IIHF U20 IIIA World Championship with an overwhelming 16-1 win against Kyrgyzstan.

An inexperienced Kyrgyz squad came to Bulgaria in an understudy status and two losses with an aggregate 16-4 score suggested that it should represent no threat to high-flying Israelis. However, victories never come by default which was proved once again at the start of the game. Having jumped to an early 2-0 lead inside the two-minute mark, our boys soon realized that any mistake could prove costly. With a slight lapse of concentration, they presented the opponents with a powerplay chance that was duly converted when Belek Maksatbekov halved the deficit.

If an alarm was needed at some point, this was the right time indeed. The goal fired our team up, they switched to another gear and never looked back. In the end, Mike Levin scored his second hat trick in as many games, Nikita Zitserman and Itay Kerner added a couple each, and there were also goals from Yann Raskin, Youval Turner, Nir Sigalov, Guy Aharonovic, Itay Bondar, Ori Segal, Sean Voshilo, Amit Ben Tov and Adi Rigler.

Levin, who added four assists to his three goals tonight, now tops the point-scoring as well as goal-scoring charts with 15 (8+7) points.

Goalie Alon Shpinel also got his name inked in the game sheet with an assist after he set up nicely Levin’s solo powerplay effort in the 19^th minute.

Now, after a day off, an encounter with Turkey awaits. The outcome of this clash seems to be crucial for the final standings. Tonight, Turkey lost 4-5 to Bulgaria which means that Israel solely tops the standings with 9 points after three games.

All 2024 IIHF U20 World Championship can be watched live HERE