MOL League:Week 19 Review

2015.01.28. 09:52 |

The second to last week in the MOL league regular season has come to a close, and after forty games played it looks like the playoff picture is pretty much set.

League leaders Miskolc could have clinched the regular season titles with three wins, the week started out unbelievably as they Ferencváros, a team that they struggle against despite the team being found at the other end of the standings. This time around Miskolc won 9-2 as Zach Cohen had an assist to go with his hattrick, Tihamér Becze was setting up his teams as he had five assist in the game and also chipped in with a goal. The PolarBears cruised past Brasov 4-2 on two goals by league leader Keegan Dansereau, but were not able to lock up the top seed in the playoffs as they lost 4-3 in a shootout at second place Dunaújváros, this time Dansereau’s brace was not enough for the win.

DAB.Docler started the week in first place and was expected to pretty much force the race for first place to come down to the last game but were only able to pick up two out of the possible nine points as they only beat Miskolc in overtime. DAB.Docler lost to Nové Zámky on the road in Lubomir Hurtaj’s coaching debut, this was followed up by a shocking home defeat to last place Csíkszereda. DAB.Docler had a two goal lead at 44:38, Csíkszereda scored three goals in span of 72 seconds in the last two minutes of play to pull out a ridiculous 6-5.

Nové Zámky’s up and down season continued as they won against the teams right in front of them and behind them in the standings, after defeating DAB.Docler, they were shutout 3-0 against UTE, Ales Sila was pitching a shutout when he was injured late in the third period and had to go to the hospital, József Pleszkán came in off the bench and shut the door for the clean sheet. In the their last game of the week Brasov lead 2-1 at the start if the third period but Nové Zámky scored four in the third for the 5-2, if they would have beat Újpest NZ could have locked up the third seed in the playoffs.

With at least a fourth place finish in the bag Brasov played a lackluster week as they came up on the losing end in all three games. Against Újpest for the first time this season Patrik Polc was not in the net as he was sick, Rajmond Fülöp got the start. Újpest picked up an important win thanks to two goals by Jussi Tapio. Polc was back in the net for the losses against Miskolc and Nové Zámky.

Debrecen for weeks has known that they will probably finish fifth in the standings and have started to rest some players for the playoffs. However on Friday night they did not rest as they were already up 5-0 just over eleven minutes into the game and would win 6-3, all six goals were scored by different skaters. Against Ferencváros Zoltán-László Tőke got the start in net in place of Savva Borodin and Balázs Ladányi did not make the trip to Budapest. FTC jumped out to a 3-0 lead and would cruise to a 4-2, newly acquired Peter Lichanec had to leave the game early because of an injury. In their last game of the week Debrecen hosted Újpest who with a win in regulation would lock up the final playoff spot. In a low scoring contest Csaba Virág scored for UTE and Danil Kaskov tied it up in the opening seconds of the third period, in the shootout Jussi Tapio scored the winner.

In an exciting back and forth game between Ferencváros and Csíkszereda, neither team was able to have more than a one goal lead. Jiri Moravec had two goals for Fradi in the shootout win, interestingly right at the midway point of the game Ferencváros switched goalies with Krisztián Budai coming on for Robert Marton.

Leading Scorers

Points: 60, Jozef Mihálik (UTE)

Goals: 33, Keegan Dansereau (Miskolc)

Assists: 41, Mihálik (UTE)

Results

DHK-HSC 6:3 (5:0, 1:0, 0:3)

UTE-Brasov 4:1 (1:1, 1:0, 2:0)

NZ-DAB 4:1 (1:0, 2:0, 1:1)

Miskolc-FTC 9:2 (5:1, 1:0, 3:1)

DAB-HSC 5:6 (1:1, 3:1, 1:4)

Miskolc-Brasov 4:2 (1:0, 2:0, 1:2)

UTE-NZ 3:0 (2:0, 1:0, 0:0)