Going into the last game of the tournament Rich Chernomaz and the Hungarian national team knew that with a win they would be safe anything less than a W would mean relegation back down to Division 2/A.
With regards to the lineup Chernomaz is continuing his goalie swap as he has alternated between Gergely Arany and Dániel Kornakker all tournament, Arnay is getting the start between the pipes. The lines had a shake up as well with Kristóf Schmál back from illness, the only player not dressing was Márk Egyed who has been out since picking up an injury in practice.
In the opening two minutes of the first period Yohei Arai rifled a shot from the blue line that caught Arany by surprise as the puck made its way into the net for the early Japanese lead. It looked as if Hungary was still in the locker rooms as they could not really get anything started. What did looked to help them was their penalty kill as they had a long 5 on 3 to defend. One all the penalties were killed Hungary opened up more but were unable to get the puck past Shun Furukawa.
The second period started much like the first period with an early Japanese goal coming off of a long shot. Jiei Halliday took a shot from the blue line that Arany initially saved but was unable to find the loose rebound, after a scramble in front of the Hungary net Ryo Katsuragawa slipped the puck past the Hungarian keeper to make it 2-0. Only being on the power play for the second time in the game Hungary was able to cut the lead to one when Bence Stipsicz took a feed from behind the net and shot it over the goalie's left shoulder for the goal. The Hunagry picked up teh pace after their, a penalty looked to kill the momentum but instead they had a great penalty kill as Erik Keresztury kept the puck in the Japanese end, and even had a scoring chance, he was then followed by Schmál who kept up the pressure. From that point on bother team were playing exciting hockey with chances on both side.
Again in the the third period Hungary gave up a goal in the first two minutes, Japan skated in a on a nice 3 on 2, had nice puck movement and Junya Inui shot and scored to make it 3-1. Hungary was gunning to get back into the game but were unable to. They did not commit any penalties in the third period but were playing a lot more choppy as the minutes dwindled off the clock. Jo Osaka made it 4-1 at 53:54 and Katsuragawa scored his second of the day to slam the door on Hungary.
With the loss Hungary has been relegated back to Division 2/A which they had won handily last year. With the end of the game against Japan eight players have “graduated” out of the Hungarian development program, Áron Reisz, Kristóf Schmál, Ferenc Kocsis, Szilárd Hamvai, Gellért Hruby, Péter Vincze, Dániel Szabó and Richárd Tóth.
Coaches Corner
“It is disappointing that the loss lead to relegation but I believe that this did not start with this game, we were not able to take advantage of our last chance to stay in, we started each period with a goal scored against us, we were chasing the realists all game which usually leads to the team opening up and getting goals. if we score first maybe everything goes differently. I think we were still playing well at 2-1 and i felt that we still had a chance to win the game, but unfortunately we did not and in the 3rd period we fell apart.” Zoltán Szilassy
“We finally played the way we have been trying to play, we have need disappointed that we were not playing simple and without structure, tonight we were able to play simple. I know how Hungary is feeling right now, it is never great to play at home under pressure, we played to our potential and won.” Mark Mahon
View from the Ice
“This game accurately reflected our entire world championships, the Japanese nice and slowly broke us down. I don’t really know what was the problem, it did not look as if anyone had any conditioning problems. The Japanese deserved to win, they controlled the game for most of the time. There were times throughout the game where we played very well but it is clear that we are not at the level to stay in this group. We would like to apologize to the fans that were supporting us all the way, we feel that we let them down, there were times where they gave us teh needed energy. We hope to get over this defeat as soon as possible and to get Hungarian hockey to teh level it needs to be at.” Gergely Arany
Other results
In the early game of the day kazakhstan beat Poland 6-3 to go undefeated in the tournament. The Kazakhs lead from start to finish as they were lead by Nikita Mikhailis who had an assist to go with his hat trick. Both Patryk Wronka and Radoslaw Sawicki had a goal and assist for Poland.
In the late game between France and Ukraine, both teams knew that the result of the game would have no real change on the standings, after two scoreless periods Guillaume LeClerc scored the only goal that was needed in the game as France won 1-0.
Awards
Best Goalie: Michael Luba (Poland)
Best Defenceman: Pierre Crinon (France)
Best Forwards: Kirill Savitski (Kazakhstan)