Just like anywhere else in the hockey world the offseason always has rumors rolling around with teams and players jockeying for the best offseason move. With the final series between Nové Zámky and Brasov now looks like a distant memory MOL League fans turn their attention to the 2014-15 season.
Since the end of the season it seems like every other day a MOL League team is announcing a new signing. Some of the clubs have the roster set and would be able to hit the ice with a capable coaching staff today, whereas others have yet to announce anything except that they have a head coach. It will be interesting how the teams will be taking advantage of the change in the number of import players a team can dress for one game, from 5 to 6.
Defending champions Nové Zámky potentially could have had the problem of losing players who performed great during the season to teams in the top Slovak and Czech league. Jan Chovan, who backstopped the team to the title, has left to play in Kazakhstan but have signed the Czech Robin Blazicek who looks to battle pavel Pavel Krajcovic for the starting nod.
The club has also signed Juraj Faith from Miskolc and Peter Huba from DAB. The club has brought back most of last season’s roster except for little used Richárd Hardi and are still in negotiations with Erik Weissmann and Vladimir Kames.
Brasov, who made a surprise run to the finals, have everyone back except for Ivan Dornic who joined the team later in the season and Roberto Gliga who has a bright future in front of him, he has signed with Caen in the French first division. Veteran imports Patrik Polc, Juha Hietamäki and Martin Saluga have all returned with Richard Filip coming back for a second stint in Brasov.
The Transylvanian club has strengthened their forward unit by bringing in Hungarian national team forward and Romanian citizen Árpád Mihály from Fehérvár, as well as Peter Klouda from Zilina. The team is trying to bring back the other half of the top defensive unit with Kevin Wehrs, too. Brasov’s coaching situation is still up in the air though with Kari Rauhanen leaving for Galati.
Regular season champions DAB has gone over some changes with head coach Stephan Lundh going back to Sweden, defensemen Victor Lindgren, Pete Huba, and Ádám Z. Hegyi will also not be with the club next season and all signs point to goalie Tamás Kiss retiring. Joining the club for the upcoming season is Márk Hajek from Újpest, as István Mestyán is back from Ferencváros and Tamás Pozsgai from Fehérvár.
Don MacLean has been brought in as the new head coach, who in the past few years had been working in Croatia. So far there are only two new import players joining the the Latvian goalie Janis Kalnins: Canadian Nathan Martine is coming over from the Kalamazoo Wings of the ECHL and Slovak Lukas Martinka spent last season in Kazakhstan. Zsolt Azari and Peter Sevela re-signed, only veteran home-town-hero Balázs Ladányi is out of a contract but it probably is only a matter of time before he signs a new contract as well.
One team that on paper could probably be ready to play a game right away is Miskolc. However, luckily for the rest of the league the game of hockey is played on ice and not on paper. Gergely Majoross was named the new head coach replacing Bob Dever who took Majoross’ old position at MAC Budapest and will be the head coach of their entering MOL team in 2015-16. Gone from Miskolc are all but one import from last season and Tyler Metcalfe has his Hungarian citizenship.
Miskolc has brought in four imports, all from North America: Thomas Heemskerk looks to be the starting goalie, former Blue Jackets draft pick Jesse Dudas, Zach Cohan and Keegan Dansereau are the other three, and re-signed Matt Boyle. Two former defesnemen will be back on the blue line, Balázs Gőz is back after spending one year in France and Péter Láda has come out of retirement to join his twin brother Balázs on the team. Ádám Hegyi, Vladimir Dubek and Attila Rafaj have all signed with Ferencváros.
The other Transilvanian club, HSC Csíkszereda have not announced any new signings and none of the imports from last year have been re-signed, either.
As the season was finishing up at Ferencváros there were rumors surfacing that the team was ready to spend a serious amount of money on improving their roster. What is known for a fact is that none of the imports will be back, joining them in exiting the club is Dominik Hegyi who will be playing with MAC, Artyom Vaszjunyin has signed with Újpest and László Nagy has retired. Máté Lévai, Norbert Muzsik and Lajos Tőkesi have also left and are still out of a contract.
The club would like to bring back Norbert Dancsfalvi, Arnold Feil and backup goalie Attila Szőke. As mentioned before a trio has been signed from Miskolc and András Horváth has come over from cross town rivals Újpest.
Újpest is hoping to get out of the basement of the league after being a bottom feeder for the last couple of years. They have named Zoltán Szilassy as the new head coach and signed Olivér Ágoston from Fehérvár as one of their goalies and they are in talks with József Pleszkán to bring him back for another season. Just like in Ferencváros none of the imports have been brought back but David Coleman should be getting his Hungarian citizenship.
As mentioned earlier Ádám Zoltán Hegyi and Artyom Vaszjunyin have signed with the club as Márk Hajek and András Horváth went elsewhere.
There was much excitement coming out of Debrecen when it was announced that they would be joining the MOL League for the upcoming season but all that is known at this time is that Vlagyimir Shcheglov will be the head coach.
There is bounded to be more offseason moves as the teams look to finalize their rosters for the upcoming.
Words: Szabolcs Závodszky
Photo: László Mudra