There is a new professional hockey team in the ESRTE Liga playing in Budapest. HK Budapest has been sticking to their plan as the past two years they have been playing Slovakia and plan to make the playoffs in their first season.
This will be the first season that HK Budapest will be participating in the ERSTE Liga, the team will have former Hungarian national team coach Dusan Kapusta as head coach as is familiar with Hungarian hockey as he has also worked in the Hungarian youth system as well. During the season HK Budapest will have a cooperation with DVTK Jegesmedvék in the ERSTE Liga where they will be serving as the farm team.
In the net HK Budapest will not have much ERSTE Liga experience however Bence Kiss, who they have on loan from DVTK is an experienced goalie despite his age. He has been a part of two championship winning teams and has been called into the national team camp in the past. Also look for Márk Hajek to get significant playing time as well, despite he young age he has over a decade of pro experience. Rounding out the goaltending depth for the team is János Gadácsi, Boldizsár Győri and Norbert Zaka.
The defensive unit has some experience as well, the first name that sticks out is former national team defenseman Attila Orbán, he should not only be the top defender on the team but also one of the leaders in the locker room. Zoltán Csiki and Levente Lakatos are two young players who have been useful defenders in their previous clubs and Milán Bernáth is on loan from DVTK. Benjámin Dorner was the team captain the past two years who also has Hungarian top league experience. Patrik Szécsi is a young player who has a tremendous upside and could not only be a breakout player on the team but also the league itself.
The two has two experienced import forwards, in former Edmonton Oilers draft pick Robin Kovar and former Csíkszereda playmaker Michal Satek. Three time league champion and former national team forward Dávid Szappanos, much like Attila Orbán will be a leader in the locker room. Tivadar Magor is a player like this who has played for a number of teams in the league during his career, which stretches back to the early 2000. The team has three players on loan who played for the DVTK the past few seasons in Tibor Albert, Roland Köllö and Otto Szopos. Dávid Jancsó looks to be a young player to keep an eye on not just this years but in seasons to come. The team has a number of hard young working players that Kapusta can rely on, Dominik Berendi, Gergő Fekete, Árpád Németh and the Vajda brothers, Zsolt and Tamás. These are the type of players that will not over complicate things and get the job done that the coach requires from them. István Szűcs and Dániel Godó are two players that have a scoring touch and will need to have good seasons if HK Budapest want to make a deep playoff run.
Despite being a new team in the league HK Budapest is gunning for the playoffs and no one should be surprised if they make it. Once the playoffs start anything can happen.
Dusan Kapusta, head coach: After two seasons in the Slovak third division we will be playing in the ERSTE Liga. I am also just as curious to see how we will perform. However this is a great opportunity for the young players to get experience. We are moving day by day, I think there will be teams that we can beat this season, of course there are some hard teams we will be facing such as Csíkszereda, UTE and Dunaújváros. Our goal is to make it to the playoffs this season and to work hard. We only have two imports, one Czech and one Slovak but we also have two experienced players who will set the tone in the locker room in Dávid Szappanos and Attila Orbán. All of our players are working hard and getting ready for the upcoming season. The young players need to learn and find out what it is like to be a pro player.
Players added: Boldizsár Győri (MAC, EBYSL) Tibor Albert, Milán Bernáth, Bence Kiss, Roland Köllö (DVTK), Zoltán Csíki (Brasov), Miklós Danko, Levente Fazakas(DVTK U20), Gergely Korbuly, Levente Lakatos, Dávid Szappanos (Ferencváros), Attila Orbán (Dunaújváros), Dávid Jancsó (Győr, EBYSL), Robin Kovar (Pavlodar, KAZ), Michal Satek (Opole, POL), Robert Izsak (Simon Fraser, BCIHL)
Players who left: Péter Gágyor (Vasas) Péter T. Vincze (DEAC) Robert Dobry, Richárd Nagy, Zsolt Wéber, Nikita Zavalnyuk (unknown)