The Hungarian national team opened up the EIHC Four Nations tournament with a solid win against Korea, a team that has caused some problems for Hungary in the past.
Rich Chernomaz decided to go with Miklós Rajna between the pipes with Dávid Duschek on the bench and Bence Bálizs was the odd man out. In the rest of the lineup Karol Csányi, Attila Rafaj István Mestyán and Nathan Martine made their national team debuts. Scratched for the game from the skaters was Krisztián Nagy, Martin Turbucz, Tamás Sárpátki, Adrián Hüffner and Attila Reiter.
The opening minutes of the game were fast paced when Hungary struck first, 2.31 into the game Tamás Pozsgai threw a soft saucer pass from the corner just inside the blue line that Ladislav Sikorcin was able to put a stick into it and softly redirect the puck, initially it looked as if Korean goalie Matthew Dalton made the save but the puck slowly trickled through his pads and across the goal line. As the opening period went on the pace of the game stayed fast but Hungary was playing a tad undisciplined as the penalties were adding up. Luckley Miklos Rajna stood tall in the net and Hungary was able to kill the penalties. Hungary had a power play late in the period when István Sofron’s pass found the stick of Karol Csányi who was low to the right of the goal and banked the puck in off of Dalton’s pads to make it 2-0 for his first Hungarian national team goal.
The second period continued where the first one left off as the Hungarian penalties kept on stacking up but Rajna stood tall. Early in the period with Sikorcin serving a penalty for hooking Rajna made a beautiful kick save to prevent Korea in taking advantage of the power play opportunity. Korea kept on skating strong as Hungary was making mistakes. At the midway point of the game István Sofron broke out on a breakaway but Matthew Dalton stuffed him, the rebound went to Sofron who made a pass behind the goal to Tyler Metcalfe who immediately laid it off to the on coming Attila Orbán, on Orbáns second attempt he slipped it past Dalton for the third Hungarian goal. Six minutes later Hungary was on the power play where they were cycling it around nicely when János Hári took a pass from Sofron on the right faceoff circle, Hári made a beautiful pin point pass down low to the on coming Márton Vas who roofed the one timer into the top of the net to make it 4-0.
It looked like the theme of the game would be the amount of penalties that were being called against Hungary as they kept on killing them. Early in the thrid period Korea had an opportunity to make a game out of it when they had a 5 on 3 power play but Rajna kept on pitching a shutout. Rajna strung together a number of big saves as Hungary killed both penalties the crowd started to chant Rajna’s name. Hungary put together another nice tic-tac-toe goal as Sikorcin took pass from Vladimir Dubek in the corner, and made the extra pass on to Attila Rafaj who placed nice into the wide open net that to be the second player that scored in their national team debut tonight. Not even two minutes later Rafaj was the center of attention again but this time it was not for his goal scoring, after Csány started to tussle with one of the Koreans Rafaj and Junhhyun Ahn were going punch for punch which naturally led to a game misconduct for both players. With twelve minutes left in the game Bence Szirányi put the game out of reach as he took a pass from Sikorcin on the power play and rifled a shot from the blue line right in front of the net and through the keepers legs. In the end Korea scored an even strength goal when a rebound was not cleared from in front of the net and Sanghoon Shin flipped it past Rajna.
The final score was 6-1 in a game that both teams are trying out new players and new tactics both coaches were happy with what they saw on the ice.
VIEW FROM THE ICE
“I was so happy to get the chance to play for the Hungarian national team and I hope I’m playing well and that coach likes how I’m playing. I am always trying to (bank the puck) score like that, sometimes it works and sometime it does not,” Karol Csányi.
COACHES' CORNER
“You can't really compare the world championships to a tournament in November, all four countries do not have their set roster. There is a certain process and development, i was really impressed even though we have only had a couple of practice. Our goaltending, 5 on 5 and special teams played with passion. I think there were some suspect calls but our penalty killing was very good and Rajan was there when he was needed,” Hungarian coach Rich Chernomaz.
“I though he did what goaltenders do, he stopped the puck at the right time and he did good tonight, on a scale of 1-10 I would give him a 9,” Hungarian goalie coach Gary Clark on Miklós Rajna’s performance.
“I feel we did great regardless of the score we are all about the process, we are starting our journey to the olympics, it was the first time I got the team together,” Korean coach Jim Peak.
THE OTHER GAME
In the early game of the day Poland surprised Italy today 3-2, it is worth mentioning that this is not the same Italian team that has been in the A Pool. Poland struck first with an early power play goal by Rafal Dutka, by the end of the first period Italy and flipped the score with two goals by Alex Frei and Diego Koster. The second and third period was mostly Poland as they were able to hold off the attack of the Italian squad, Krysztof Zapala made it 2-2 at the 24:03 mark. Sebastian Kowalowka made it 3-2 in the favor of Poland in the early parts of the third period, Poland looked like the stronger team but were not able to tie the game despite pulling their goalie at the end of the game.
“I think we started the game pretty well for the first 5-6 minutes of the first period, however the first 5-6 minutes of the second period did not go well and we struggled and made mistakes, luckily we calmed down for the rest of the second and the third period,” Poland assistant coach Torbjörn Johansson.
“We expected a tough game, they are a big strong team, I am familiar with the work that [Yyachoslov] Bykov has done with this team, I’m very happy with our effort and our intensity and our fighting spirit. We got a young team, we are here to see who can play at this level and play these one goal games, most of the games will be one goal games,” Italian coach Ivanno Zanatta.