The preliminary list of candidates published early in July has seen serious reshuffle. All-in-all, 38 names were included:

Goalies: Evgeny Nabokov (San Jose, NHL), Semen Varlamor (Washington, NHL), Ilya Bryzgalov (Phoenix, NHL), Alexander Eremenko (Salavat Yulaev, KHL)

Defenders: Sergey Gonchar (Pittsburgh, NHL), Andrey Markov (Montreal, NHL), Fedor Tyutin (Columbus, NHL), Denis Grebeshkov (Edmonton, NHL), Aleksey Zhitnik (Dynamo, KHL), Anton Volchenkov (Ottawa, NHL), Dmitry Kalinin, Maxim Kondratiev, Vitaly Proshkin, Oleg Tverdovsky (all from Salavat Yulaev, KHL), Vitaly Atyushov (Metallurg Magnitogorsk, KHL), Ilya Nikulin (Ak Bars, KHL), Sergey Zubov (Dallas NHL / SKA, KHL), Vitaly Vishnevsky (Lokomotiv, KHL), Konstantin Korneev (CSKA, KHL).

Forwards: Alexander Ovechkin, Alexander Semin (both from Washington, NHL), Sergey Fedorov (Metallurg Magnitogorsk, KHL), Evgeny Malkin (Pittsburgh, NHL), Ilya Kovalchuk (Atlanta, NHL), Pavel Datsyuk (Detroit, NHL), Alexey Kovalev (Ottawa, NHL), Alexander Frolov (Los Angeles, NHL), Sergey Zinoviev, Alexander Radulov, Viktor Kozlov (all from Salavat Yulaev, KHL), Evgeny Artyukhin (Tampa Bay, NHL), Nikolay Kulemin (Toronto, NHL), Oleg Saprykin (Dymamo Moscow, KHL), Konstantin Gorovikov (SKA, KHL), Maxim Afinogenov (Buffalo, NHL), Danis Zaripov, Aleksey Morozov, Aleksey Tereschenko (all from Ak Bars, KHL).

The Russian Ice Hockey Team’s head coach, Vyacheslav Bykov, and his aides will have to do some great work to pick out 23 players who will head to the four-yearly main event on the hockey calendar. Indeed, the current list of 38 is enough to make two competitive squads able to win any tournament. With Nabokov, Gonchar, Markov, Ovechkin, Malkin, Datsyuk and Morozov all looking untouchable figures, Bykov will need to decide what’s more important for him – the experience of such hockey stars as Zubov, Tverdovsky, Zhitnik, Fedorov and Kovalev or the energy of their younger teammates.