With the MOL League playoffs in full swing and the EBEL playoffs right around the corner the rest of the Hungarian teams are concentrating on qualifying to the Hungarian Cup Final 4.
The first two games of the qualification round was contested by the youngest team in the field, MAC Budapest has entered a squad made up of players no older than 20. The club is using this group stage to prove that they have the talent to play in the MOL League next season and also give the young guys a taste of what's it like to play with the big boys.
With the ice not yet ready in the Tüskecsarnok UTE hosted MAC in the first game. If someone was attending their first hockey game ever this game would have been perfect for them for the first two periods as the game contained goals for both teams, and a couple of tussles as well. Róbert Dömötör and Jozef Mihalik scored two early goals for UTE but István Terbócs was able to get one back for MAC. Dániel Kiss was left open in the slot in the final minute of the period so put up UTE by two. In the second period MAC was able to keep pace with UTE with Richárd Tóth and Miroslav Durak dropping their gloves. Durak had to leave the game with a cut on his face while Tóth received a game misconduct to go with a broken nose. In the third period things got ugly not only on the scoreboard but on the ice as well. UTE scored twice in a 22 second span in the early part of the period when Jussi Tapio and David Coleman both beat Gergely Arany with some fancy stick work to go up 5-1 and have the game in the bag. Tapio scored again minutes later but after the goal a fight broke out when Teemu Elomo crosschecked Ákos Inglis from behind onto the bench, at one point Elomo wanted to fight anyone and anything with Oliver Herner and Mihalik having a boxing match on their own. Elomo, Mihalik and Herner were all tossed from the game. Richard Reiter scored a late goal to set the final score at 7-1.
MAC was back on the Újpest ice on Monday as they hosted a veteran Debrecen. Debrecen looked rusty in the opening period as they had not played game in weeks. The teams exchanged goals in the early minutes as Daniel Kaskov but DHK up 1-0 and Dániel Papp answered minutes later, Alexey Voronov scored on a screened shot to give Debrecen the one goal lead after the first twenty minutes. DHK had decided before the game to switch goalies at the midway point, Zoltán-László Tőke supplanted Savva Borodin right at the midway point, this was when Debrecen started to flex their muscles as Norbert Hári roofed a one timer on the power play and Kaskov also scored a nice goal to make it 4-1. In the closing minutes of the period Terbócs was able to send a puck between the legs of Tőke to make it 4-2. With Debrecen only holding a two goal lead the question was how long could MAC keep up with the veteran squad. In the first minute of the period the veteran Balázs Ladány flashed his skills has he picked out the far corner of the net from a close angle that only Ladányi can. In a two and a half minute span DHK slammed home another three goals after the first one Arany was replaced by Norbert Zaka, a move that the coaching staff intended to do earlier but waited off on because of the close score. DHK would end up scoring five goals in the third period but the young MAC team was not scored off as they managed to light the lamp twice themselves for a finale of 9-4. Kaskov would finish with hat trick, Ladányi and Dániel Bödök each had a brace.
Standings
UTE 3 points
Debrecen 3 points
DAB.Docler 0 points
FTC 0 points
MAC 0 points