The MOL League will start its eight season when the puck drops between MAC Budapest and Újpest Thursday night in the Tüskecsarnok.
A lot has happened since the overtime game that Miskolc won on home ice on March 14th to win the 2014-15 MOL League season over Nové Zámky. In April the national team of both Hungary and Romania won promotion to the next level, Hungary to the A-Pool with Romania to Division 1. The PolarBears traded the name Miskolc in for DVTK as the hockey club is no part the the DVTK sports family. Nové Zámky after the losing the final, in the offseason the Slovak federation did not give the green light for them to play in the 2015-16 season, so for at least this season the MOL League will be only a two country league. Despite the Slovak club not playing the number of teams in the league did not shrink but actually expanded
New teams
Fehérvár AV19 is back in the MOL League, after winning the last three Hungarian U20 titles and the EBEL twice with a silver in between, it was the next logical step to re enter the league with the players who had “graduated” from the program, this will be all down by the same successful coach, Tyler Dietrich
The other new team to the show is MAC Budapest who last season finished runner up to Fehérvár in the U20 championships, which will be coached by Gergely Majoross who won three trophies with Miskolc last season and was an assistant with the Hungarian national team last season.
New Management
The league has a new president in Álmos Szőke who is also the managing director of RedBull Hungary. He will bring in new and fresh ideas to the league as he works together with István Végh who stayed on as vice president.
The field
The favorites are defending champion and rebranded DVTK Jegesmedvék but the roster has not changed that much and Péter Mayer has taken over for Majoross and has a chance to repeat as champions.
Last years semifinalists Corona Brasov and Dunaújváros are going in a different direction, the former is emphasizing youth and home grown talent, because of this they will be entering the season without a single import player on the roster. The latter is concentrating on keeping up the hockey in the town, the coaches will be Ottó Keresztes in Brasov and Lee Gilbert in Dunaújváros.
Debrecen and Újpest who finished fifth and sixth respectively last season both strengthened their roster in the offseason. Debrecen had a successful season and their coach Evgeni Muhin is now an assistant coach in the KHL replacing him will be countryman Dimitri Romanov. In the purple and white hope to build on the success of of last season under the guidance of Zoltán Szilassy.
Ferencváros and HSC Csíkszereda have both seen better days in the past, this season FTC has brought in former Miskolc and Brasov coach Greg Lindqvist with István Geréb coaching the Transylvanian club.
Even though Fehérvár and MAC are the two new teams in the league they are building a team for the playoffs.
Broadcasts
This season there will be a lot of hockey on the television, MOL League’s new TV partner M4 Sport which will air at least 40 games, with the first game being this Thursday nights MAC Budapest-Újpest game at 20:30 and on Friday DVTK-Ferencváros will be on the tube. Before the opening game M4 will have a season preview show.
Internet
All MOL League action, statistics along with previews and interviews can be found on molliga.eu as well as the Hungarian Ice Hockey Federations’ website icehockey.hu along with the leagues facebook page and twitter page.
Regular season and playoffs
The regular season goes from September 10th until February 4th during which each team will play 48 games with six teams making the playoffs. The top two teams get a first round bye with number 3 playing 6 and teams 4 and 5 as the other matchup starting February 8th and the best out of three series going to the 18th at the latest. The semifinals will go from the the 21st to March 6th and the finals between the 9th and the 23rd. The semi finals and the finals are both a best of seven series.
The highest finishing Hungarian team in the League will be crowned Hungarian champions.
Overtime
The MOL League has adopted the same overtime rules that the AHL has been using for the regular season games. The overtime is four on four for the first three minutes, after the first stoppage in play the remaining four minutes will be three on three. If the game is still tied after overtime the game will be decided in a shootout.
Points will remain the same, three points for a win in regulation, two for an overtime win, one for an overtime loss and zero for a regulation loss.