VANCOUVER — Artur Gatiyatov scored the winning goal and added an assist and goaltender Demid Yeremeyev made 40 saves as Kazakhstan held off Denmark 4-3 Wednesday in the first game of the relegation round at the world junior hockey championship.

Oleg Boiko, Yernar Musabayev and Sayan Daniyar also scored for Kazakhstan, which leads the best-of-three series 1-0.

Jonas Rondbjerg, Andreas Grundtvig and Malte Setkov scored Denmark's first three goals of the tournament.

Denmark outshot Kazakhstan 43-19, including 17-8 in the final period, and pulled to within a goal of the Kazakhstanis when Setkov scored with 2:20 left in regulation. But Yeremeyev's performance moved Kazakhstan a win away from a spot at the 2020 tournament.

Mads Soegaard stopped 15 shots for Denmark.

After finishing last in their respective preliminary-round groups, the two teams are playing a best-of-three series to see who stays up for the 2020 world junior tournament in the Czech Republic and who gets relegated to Division 1. The loser of the series will be replaced by Germany in 2020.

Game 2 of the series will be played on Friday.

Denmark defeated Belarus in last year's relegation round.