MOL League: Week 4 Preview

The season is under full swing and that means that every match day, fans will have a number of games to keep an eye on.

MAC Budapest has a one point lead over Debrecen who has a game in hand over the Budapest club, who has a two hard games ahead of them as they will be hosting the defending champions Friday night and then face Fehérvár again the only team that has handed them a regulation loss. Coach Majoross’ team has the advantage of being healthy. DVTK can leap over MAC in the standings with a win, however they will be also facing Csíkszereda on Saturday and will have a hard game on Monday at Debrecen. The defending champions have been playing well with Mark Guggenberger out and the two young goalies Attila Adorján and Bence Kiss rotating in net. Debrecen doesn’t have it easy either, they will follow up the Monday night game against DVTK with a Tuesday game against Brasov. The weekend will start with a home game against HSC, the team is still without Balázs Ladányi and Róbert Izsák with Ádám Vay probably playing in net all three games as he has all season.

After a slow start to the season it looks like Tyler Dietrich has his boys going strong as they have strung together some wins and are getting good goaltending. They have a healthy roster but with injuries coming up with the Volán EBEL team, players are being called up from the farm. Aside from facing MAC, Fehérvár will be hosting Brasov for the first time this season. Right on Alba Volán’s tail is Ferencváros who at the start of the weekend will be without Tamás Erdélyi, Tamás Ordy and Márton Mach however they will have a familiar face back as Linus Schellin was just signed. Ferencváros has a chance to pass Volán and to make up some ground on the top three teams as they are facing two teams in Dunaújváros and Brasov that are behind them in the standings.

There is a four point gap between the two Budapest clubs, FTC and Újpest this give the league standings a split with UTE leading the bottom half. Újpest has been struggling to score goals as Teemu Elomo has been out all season and will be for a bit longer, Péter Gágyor should be back soon. As a stop gap the team has signed Slovenian forward Erik Pance, the team only has one game this week, against Csíkszereda. The Romanian team will be starting the road trip with a new coach as Artur Oktyabrev will take over behind the bench next week as he will only be watching from the stands this week. HSC will be without Zsombor Antal, Szabolcs Papp and the Molnár brothers because of health issues, Oleg Blagoy will not make the trip because of visa issues, however Kyle Heffernan will be back. The best opportunity for the team to pick up points will be against Dunaújváros, who they are tied on points with.