After not beating Austria in 38 years Hungary has won back to back games against the neighbors to the west, as well as boosting the confidence before the World Championships.
After a come from behind win against Austria Rich Chernomaz shuffled the lines a bit for the second match against the neighbors, in preparation for the world championships. Getting the start in goal was Bence Bálizs and Zoltán Hetényi was the backup with Wednesdays starter Miklós Rajna scratched. Also out of the lineup who played on Wednesday were defencemen Balázs Gőz and Dániel Kiss as well as forwards Roland Hajós, Tamás Sárpátki, and Adrián Tóth. Taking their place in the lineup was Tamás Gröschl, Attila Reiter and Arnold Varga on the blue line with Zsolt Azari, Csaba Kovács and Balázs Sebők who just made it back from Finland. All in all Rich Chernomaz dressed 13 forwards and nine defencmen, the original plan was to give Frank “the Tank” Banham a light workload
With a full house in the Tüskecsarnok supporting the hometeam Hungary came out flying and ready to give the fans a good show. Hungary had a number of chances but so did Austria, right before the halfway point of the period Tamás Pozsgai took a shot from high in the slot, István Baralis was on the spot to put the rebound past Bernard Starkbaum for the 1-0 lead. Hungary had a great chance to double the lead with their first power play of the night as coach Rich Chernomaz sent out a power play unit of István Sofron and Frank Banham on the blueline with Andrew Sarauer, Dániel Kóger and Bálint Magosi. Sending out five forwards paid off as they nicely cycled the puck Frank Banham was able to be set up for a rocket to make it 2-0.
In the opening minutes of the second period with András benk sitting in the box Austria but together nice power play when Manuel Ganahl wrapped the puck around Bálizs to cut Hungary’s lead in half. The pace of the game picked up as the game went on with Hungary creating a number of scoring chances, in the closing minutes of the period Hungary was awarded their second power play and again the five forwards were sent out and again the were able to cycle the puck well, this time Banham set up Sofron for the rocket that Kóger redirected to put Hungary back up by two goals.
In the third period the teams started to visible get tired, Hungary and a third power play but it did not go the same way as the first two as this time not only did they not score a third power play goal but Martin Schumnig skated in a on a shorthanded breakaway and beat Bálizs for the goal. The rest of the game Hungary defended well the rest of the game and came through for the second win in two nights.
Todays Lineup
Bálizs (Hetényi)
Varga, Mestyán
Szirányi, Metcalfe
Pozsgai, Gröschl
Orbán, Reiter
Berta
Sofron, Sarauer, Kóger
Kovács, Bartalis, Hári,
Benk, Nagy K, Magosi,
Sebők, Erdély Azari
Banham
Scratched: Rajna, Gőz, Kiss, Tokaji, Tóth, Hajós, Sárpátki, Sikorcin, Vincze
Missing: Vas M, Nagy G, Vas J.
Coaches Corner
Rich Chernomaz- “I thought we were much more consequent tonight tactically, defensively we were better tonight then on Wednesday and because of this we only had half the scoring chances. We were able to capitalize on two power plays and I think that was the biggest difference, I don't think there was that much difference between the teams, both teams were getting tired as the game went on.”
Dieter Kalt- “It was important to see how the team can react after a loss, to see if we can match the same intensity as in vienna. hungary was the better team in the first period but as the game we went on we thought that we played better. Hungary played aggressive and forchecked. The guys worked hard and we made some mistakes. In the end the game was decided by the special teams.”
View from the Ice
Dániel Kóger- “The Austrians started slower like we did on Wednesday, but for the second period they came out a bit harder, it ended up becoming a good game, i think we played well, there were a couple of mistakes we over thinked it at time. We only worked one day on the power play and it looks like it works ”
Csaba Kovács- “It was pretty good game, defensively we played better, we cut down on the number of scoring chances that we gave them. We need to start all the periods strong, that might be one thing that we need to work on”
Bence Bálizs- "It was a good game, last game from the bench and today I felt that the Austrians were not playing as string as they might be able to. We not only wanted to win the game more but we faught harder and that might have been the difference in the end."
The Hungarian Squad
Goalies (3): BÁLIZS Bence (Miskolci Jegesmedvék) HETÉNYI Zoltán RAJNA Miklós (Fehérvár AV19)
Defensmen (11): KISS Dániel (Újpest) ORBÁN Attila, REITER Attila, SZIRÁNYI Bence, TOKAJI Viktor, VARGA Arnold (Fehérvár AV19), GRÖSCHL Tamás, POZSGAI Tamás, MESTYÁN Tamás (Dab.Docler), GŐZ Balázs (Miskolci Jegesmedvék), VAS Márton (Löwen Frankfurt, DEL2)
Forwards (22): AZARI Zsolt (Dab.Docler), BANHAM Frank, BARTALIS István, BENK András, EREDÉLY Csanád, KOVÁCS Csaba, KÓGER Dániel, MAGOSI Bálint, SÁRPÁTKI Tamás, SARAUER Andrew, SIKORCIN Ladislav, VINCZE Péter, (Fehérvár AV19), HAJÓS Roland, METCALFE Tyler, NAGY Krisztián, TÓTH Adrián (Miskolci Jegesmedvék), BERTA Ákos (Debreceni HK), SEBŐK Balázs (Hokki, FIN2), SOFRON István (Krefeld Pinguine, GER), VAS János (Slavia Praha, CZE) NAGY Gergő (Kalamazoo Wings, ECHL) HÁRI János (MODO, SWE)
Coaching Staff
Head Coach: Rich Chernomaz
Assistant Coaches: Gergely Majoross, Tamás Sille, Diego Scandella
Goalie Coach: Gary Clark
Exhibition game schedule
19:00 Hungary-Austria (at the Tüskecsarnok)
Sunday April 12
17:00 Hungary Slovenia (at the Tüskecsarnok)
World Championships Schedule
Sunday April 19
13:00 Hungary-Japan
16:30 Ukraine-Kazakhstan
20:00 Poland-Italy
Monday April 20
13:00 Kazakhstan-Hungary
16:30 Italy-Ukraine
20:00 Poland-Italy
Tuesday April 21-Off day
Wednesday April 22
13:00 Kazakhstan-Japan
16:30 Italy-Hungary
20:00 Poland-Ukraine
Thursday April 23
13:00 Japan-Italy
16:30 Ukraine-Hungary
20:00 Kazakhstan-Poland
Friday April 24-Off day
Saturday April 25
13:00 Japan-Ukraine
16:30 Italy-Kazakhstan
20:00 Hungary-Poland
Photo: László Mudra