Debrecen Preview

The MOL League start draws nearer icehockey.hu continues with their preseason preview series, this time covering second year club and last years suprise team Debrecen.

Debrecen hopes to build on their success from last season, however the team has gone through a lot of changes. Last seasons head coach Evgeni Muhin parlayed his success into a KHL assistant coaching position, replacing him is Dimitri Romanov who’s coaching experience was collected  almost exclusively in the MHL as an assistant and a head coach.

The key to the team's success was not only bringing in experienced Hungarian players but the imports they signed being quality players but also the hand full of young guys they brought up also became key players for the club. It will be interesting to see if the imports that were brought in this year can hit the same level as the ones they are replacing from last season. The team played the first half of the season basically with two and a half lines as they were decimated by injuries.

THE ROSTER

Debrecen this season like last season will have two very young goalies minding their net. The 23 year old Savva Borodin is back for another year, teaming up with him is the 21 year old Ádám Vay who is back in Hungary after playing junior hockey the past two seasons in the WSHL. Borodin had a good season last year and Vay could be a capable backup for Debrecen.

Debrecen lost some experience on the blue line, right now the most experienced player in the unit is 25 year old Zsolt Wéber, hopefully the offseason additions of Bronson Kovács and Péter Hetényi can bring some stability. If they the team get get past the opening weeks of the season and pick up experience this could end up being the strength of the club.

The forward lines have enough talent and experience to have two solid top lines Ákos Berta, Norbert Dancsfalvi, Danil Kaskov, Artur Kurilyok being joined by a healthy Balázs Ladányi and free agent signing Martin Saluga.Two young players who should build on their success from last year are Norbert Hári and Áron Könczei, with Artyom Vaszjunyin also in the mix that give the team three lines they can rely on. The key will be if Ladányi can actually stays healthy.

COACHES' CORNER

Balázs Ladányi:The original plan was the organization was to take everything season by season and to build on the previous year and too take a step forward. Last season last season we made it to the playoffs, the next step is the next step is the semi finals. No one has said it out loud but it would be great if we won the title.

Expert Opinion*

It is very hard to say anything at this time, there has been surprisingly little information coming out of the Debrecen camp in the offseason. The key to Debrecen’s success is how healthy Ladány’s knee is, if he isn't in full strength they could even miss the playoffs.

*Recently retired former MOL League player

New additions: Vay (El Paso, WSHL), Emanuelsson (Amerillo, NAHL), Guschin (Sakhalinskiye Akuly, MHL), Hetényi (Fehérvár AV19, EBEL), Kovács (Hobart, NCAA III), Kunayev (Vitebsk, Belarus), Izsák (Saskatchewan, CIS), Saluga (Brasov) Trisha (Lida, Belarus), Ustyantsev (Arystan Temirtau, Kazakhstan)  Ivanov (Did not play)