All three Budapest MOL League teams were in action Friday night, the TV game was the Budapest derby has Ferenváros traveled to the 3rd district to take on Újpest, MAC hosted Dunaújváros for the first time this season.
UTE-FTC 3-2 OT
Újpest has had a slow start to the season where as Ferencváros has been overachieving. As expected Elomo and Gágyor did not play, UTE coach Zoltán Szilassy was hoping that the forwards Benji Nemes and Jozef Mihalik would step their scoring. Ales Sila and Krisztián Budai were the starting goalies for their respective teams. The visiting Ferencváros took the lead in the last minute of the first period as Vladimir Dubek skated across the blueline and fired a shot that ended up behind Sila for the 1-0. Csaba Papp doubled the Green Eagles lead with an unassisted goal. Újpest woke up in the second half of the game as Karol Csányi cut the deficit in half, by the end of the second period when Józef Mihálik scored in the last minute. After a scoreless third period the game went to overtime where in the last minute Tamás Gröschl settled the game for the home team as two points out of the three stayed in Újpest.
UTE Head Coach Zoltán Szilassy “Even though we were able to stand up from being two goals down, I feel about about the one point that we lost. I hope that we will play better next game and we can capitalize on our chances”
MAC-DAB 4-1
One of the two new teams to the league, MAC Budapest is sitting at the top of the standings after five games, Dunáújváros knew that this season will not be easy but they have been an exciting team to watch this season. MAC was without István Terbócs because of injury and Ian McDonald because of illness, the starting goalies were Bence Bálizs for the home team and Breton Lindoff for the visitors. Gergely Borbás put Dunaújváros up when he skated through the MAC zone and slipped the puck between Bálizs’ legs. In the second period Dávid Szappanos tied it up when he roofed a rebound from the slot past Lindoff. In the early minutes of the third period Lindoff made a nice save but was not able to control the rebound and Jeff Hayes put the puck in the back of the net for the lead. Dunaújváros looked to get visibly weaker as the third period went on. István Mestyán snipped out the top corner to make it 3-1 and Tamás Pozsgai taken on an empty netter at the end.
Head Coach Gergely Majoross “We were not sharp at the beginning of the game, regardless of how hard you worked if you are not sharp things don't go your way. I'm very happy that in the end we found a way to keep the three points at home. We knew that we will not be able to work out the chances but that we will have to throw it on net and grind it out to score.”
Photo: Zoltán Rózsa