After a magical 2023 season the expectations for the Men’s national team were sky high. It felt like nothing could go wrong and Poland was back to proving they belong at the top of the hockey world. Instead in their first IIHF appearance since promotion they looked their worst since they were relegated to Division 1 Group B.

Poland came into this tournament with so much going in their favor. Sure star players like John Murray and Alan Łyszczarczyk were absent. South Korea, whom on paper, was their biggest rival would be without the star of their national team goalie Matt Dalton. The red and white played South Korea in an exhibition match that saw Poland score five goals in the first period as they parked the bus and won six to nothing.

It seems though that first period made Poland greedy and they overlooked their opponents for the rest of the tournament. Poland had a uneven but strong performance against Estonia that they won 4-0. Against Ukraine they showed in the first period the team we all saw win promotion last year. Unfortunately for the next two periods we saw the worse hockey of the Kalaber era. Poland fell to Ukraine 3-2 in the shootout. It felt like falling off a cliff and all the positive momentum was a mirage. Polish hockey sometimes is on the path of dehydration in a desert. Now we have to figure out if the promotion to the Elite is a hallucination of luck or an oasis.

After Poland’s performance on the final day versus South Korea it certainly feels like the mirage. Poland has never looked so bad under Kalaber. Even though Poland was eliminated from advancing after Ukraine beat Estonia, there was still an outside chance due to the IIHF pending ruling on Belarus and Russia. There isn’t much to break down, Poland came out poor and South Korea did its best to take advantage. Poland finally came alive late in the third scoring twice, but it wasn’t enough to win. In overtime South Korea finished the job leaving Poland to sink to third place.

Kalaber just got an extension to continue leading the national team. I’m not at all coming close to saying firing him. But he is now faced with his biggest defeats and challenges. He needs to regroup and figure out what went wrong fast. Was it the wrong the group? Should players like Krezolek or Macias have been taken? Even if the wrong players, why did they seem so flat? Why couldn’t Kalaber and his staff get them motivated? These questions are now going to linger until May now.

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