UTE-DHK 4-2
Debrecen had travelled to Újpest in hopes of an easy road win to get a good start to the playoffs, Áron Könczei was out of the lineup and Ádám Vay started in net. UTE had József Pleszkán between the posts. The home team scored first in the second minute when Tamás Virág redirected a shot from the blue line. Péter Gágyor made it 2-0 before the game was even five minutes old when he rifled a shot from under the right faceoff dot. Debrecen didn’t know what hit them as UTE went up 3-0 on a breakaway by Benji Nemes. Debrecen finally got on the scoreboard after a tape to tape pass from Erik Piatek to Martin Saluga down low who just tapped the puck into the wide open net. UTE scored in the opening minutes of the second period as well when Nemex banged home a Gágyor rebound. With five minutes left in the second period Dániel Kiss skated too close to the Debrecen goal for Vay’s comfort and the Debrecen goalie jumped the UTE defender with a couple punches to the head. With the Debrecen goalie tossed from the game, Péter Nagy came in to finish the game in net. In the closing minutes of the game Timur Rasulov made it a two goal game when he put his own rebound in on the power play.
UTE coach Zoltán Szilassy: It was a good game for us, we started really well offensively, we controlled the game for 60 minutes, it was a nice back and forth game and our energy was very, we will not only be physically fresh but mentally as well for Game 2 in Debrecen.