Russia had been counting on Anton Belov for this month's world hockey championships, but the door is open for the defenseman to return next season despite testing positive for a banned substance, the national team coach said Tuesday.
Traces of a forbidden stimulant were found in the Avangard Omsk player's sample after the fourth game of the Gagarin Cup final series against Dynamo Moscow last month.
He was withdrawn from the roster with Avangard leading the series 3-1. Dynamo won three games straight to steal the title in dramatic fashion.
Belov, a regular pick for the national team, is unavailable for Russia's quest to win its first world championships since 2009 starting Friday in Sweden.
"Belov for me is a real loss," Zinetula Bilyaletdinov said. "I was counting on him. It was 99 percent certain that he would have been in the team. What happened was a real loss."
But he added that "if he will comply next season, he will play. Of course I will select him for the national team."
Drawn against Sweden, the Czech Republic, Germany, Norway, Latvia, Denmark and Italy, the Russian national team will play all its group stage matches in Stockholm.
The team suffered a 2-1 defeat to the Czech Republic in their final warm-up match on Monday, with Bilyaletdinov blaming the result on a lack of concentration.
For the championships, Bilyaletdinov is also without Maxim Rybin, who in February left the national team camp in Helsinki after failing a drugs test.
"Rybin was also a candidate for the team," he said. "But it so happened that he automatically withdrew himself, so we haven't picked him."
Russia's sports ministry announced Tuesday that it would seek immediate suspensions for athletes found to have taken banned substances without awaiting the results of back-up tests.
The aim is to avoid a repeat of the situation that allowed Rybin of the SKA St. Petersburg team to play 16 games despite testing positive months ago, deputy sports minister Yury Nagornykh said.
