The ice is frozen, the sticks are taped, every one is under contract now all is missing is the puck to be dropped between Debreceni Hoki Klub and Újpest on Friday the 19th at 18:00 in Debrecen.
MOL League newcomers Debrecen will be mostly relying on veteran experienced MOL League players such as former Hungarian national team players, forwards Balázs Ladányi, Ákos Berta and Artyom Vaszjunyin as well as defenceman Lajos Tőkési. Having veterans like this along with Russian defenceman Alexei Voronov will make head coach Evgeni Mukhin’s job a lot easier.
“All of people expect us to finish at the bottom of the table, which is enough motivation in itself, and we have been training hard both on and off the ice to prove everyone wrong,” said Zsolt Wéber who joined the club from Ferencváros this off season.
Goaltending could be a bit of a problem since the oldest player is the 21 year old Oleg Dyatlov with the backups being 20 and 18 in Zoltán-László Tőke and Arnold László respectively.
Protecting the blue line along with Voronov, Tőkési and Wéber will be a group of young but enthusiastic Russians and Hungarians. This unit will probably have the most pressure on them as they try to cut down on the number of shots that the young netminders will have to face during the season.
Usually for a new team scoring goals is their biggest problem. However that might not be the case for Debrecen. Joining Berta, Ladányi and Vaszjunyin are a couple of other MOL League forwards as well has some younger players who torched the U20 leagues last season.
Dávid Horváth and Norbert Dancsfalvi both had career highs in points when they spent the previous season with the Budapest club Ferencváros. Zsombor Balázs (35 points in 35 games), home-grown talent Áron Könczei (58 in 32), Mátyás Odnoga (65 in 34) and Csanád Okos (56 in 32) were finding the back of the net regularly in the Slovak U20s. Of course it is hard to compare a youth league to a league where you are going up against professionals everyday. Danil Kasov and Vitali Sychov should help with implementing the Mukhin’s system with both of them playing in Russia for a number of years.
When asked about the fans and the environment in Debrecen, Wéber only had good things to say “If the reports are true most of the games are to be sold out and the fans will create a good atmosphere on game days, and eventually we could be regularly selling out a building the size of the Főnix Arena.”
However, Ladányi put the season expectations realistically as possible “We should not be unrealistic, reaching the finals would be a stretch, but in sports surprises can always happen, right now I think we would be extremely happy if we made the playoffs.”
Photo: jegkorongblog.hu