After a disappointing loss to to Argentina in the group stage on Tuesday Hungary had the day off on Wednesday to regroup. In the quarterfinals they took on a strong Great Britain team where they came up short
In the quarter finals Hungary faced Great Britain, had finished second in the group, both teams were battling to make it to the semi finals. After the day off Attila Hoffmann when back to Krisztián Budai in the goal after Tamás Kiss started the last group stage game against Argentina.
The first period was exciting as both teams had scoring chances and both team was on the powerplay as well but neither team found the back of the net.
The Brits scored in the opening minute of the second period on a power play that carried over from the first half. Great Britain cycled the puck around with a number of nice one touch passes that ended with Rob Shelton scoring a goal. Britain won the ensuing faceoff, skated into the Hungarian zone and Ben Lowe put the puck past Budai. Shelton put Great Britain up 3-0 off of a counter attack, the three goal lead did not last long as Ákos Kiss brought Hungary back within two on a nice solo.
In the second half Great Britain continued to look like the better team as Sam Jones and Joseph Ganley looked to put the score out of reach for Hungary. Both teams continued to play sloppy hockey as the penalties stacked up on both sides as the final period started.
Hungary was finally able to score a goal on the power play when Attila Rafaj put the puck past British goalie James Tanner. The game started to get exciting as less than a minute later Vilmos Gallo backhanded the puck out of the air for a beautiful goal to put Hungary within two. Minutes Gallo struck again to make it a one goal game. A Hutchinson goal put the Brits back up by two and it looked that that would be enough but Szilárd Sándor scored 19 seconds later to make it 6-5. In the end that was as close as Hungary could get as Lowe scored his second of the game in the final minute of play.
Attila Hoffmann-” We did not get the results that we wanted to, which is a shame after the team moral was great and lead to use coming back from being down 5-1. At teh end we bad a couple mistakes and they scored goals, looking back at it in reality I think we are better team and we have the talent to finish in the top three, but I don't think we deserved to finish in the top. Now we have to build off of this game and learn from our mistakes, I think we should win the next two games but of course we wont look down on the opponents.”
Vilmos Gallo “They were up five-1 but it didn't look like a team that was this much stronger, we took too many penalties and they had a couple of nice set plays which helped them take the lead. We were able to came back late in the game and over all we didn't play bad. We need to take less penalties in the future, we need to put more shots on net and need to clear the pucks from in front of our own net. Now we need to win our last two games.”
Schedule
Hungary-Croatia: 5-1
Hungary-Australia 2-7
Hungary-Argentina 3-4 OT
Quarter finals:
Hungary-Great Britian: 5-7
Roster:
Goalies: Krisztián Budai, Tamás Kiss
Skaters: Balázs Bartalis, Róbert Dömötör, Arnold Feil, Norbert Fekecs, Vílmos Galló, Ákos Kiss, Tamás Lencsés, Márton Mach, Zoltán Pál, Imre Peterdi, Attila Rafaj, Zoltán Revák, Szilárd Sándor, István Terbócs
Coaches: Attila Hoffmann, Imre Peterdi