After a closer than expected win against the host team Korea, Hungary took on Ukraine on the second day of the tournament. Even though Ukraine was team that won promotion back up to the Division 1A level, everyone knew that they are not the hands down weakest team. They are a strong, fast, physical team that has gone through some changes since Andrei Nazarov has taken over as coach. Hungary knew this would be a hard fought game after Ukraine had lost in overtime yesterday to Austria and it turned out to be even harder...
Ukraine came out skating hard and had picked up the flow of the game much faster than Hungary had. Ukraine took an early 1-0 lead off of a goal by Yevgen Bulkhin, Árpád Mihály was sitting in the penalty box for cross checking, on the power play Bukhin took a pass from behind the goal and shot it from low in the slot past Zoltán Hetényi. Ukraine kept up the pressure during the rest of the first period, holding on to the puck at minutes at a time. Hungary was not really able to get into the game and was not able to put together any serious scoring chances. Hungary only had three shots on goal with Ukraine putting 17 on net in the first period.
In the second period the game had settled down somewhat, but Hungary kept on shooting themselves in the foot by taking bad penalties. With Tamás Pozsgai in the box for interference István Sofron was called for a slash on the penalty kill. Ukraine went to work and were buzzing around the net, Oleg Shafarenko made it 2-0 when buried a rebound that Hetényi could not control. 63 seconds later a shot went wide of the goal but it bounced back off the boards and with Hetényi cought out of position Oleg Tymchenko put the puck in the puck in the open net for the third power play goal of the game for Ukraine. As the period went on Ukraine started visibly look weaker but Hungary could not one past Sergi Gaiduchenko.
The remainder of the second period and all throughout the third Hetényi stone walled Ukraine, but unfortunately nothing much was happening at the other end of the ice. Hungary was just not creating scoring opportunities. ”We first got mentally tried and then physically, the penalties started to stack up and then we couldn't handle it physically” said defenceman Viktor Tokaji The pointless penalties kept on stacking up but nothing good come out of the third period for Hungary.
With every team already losing points the tournament is still wide open for anyone to grab the top two positions for promotion.
Coaches' Corner
Andrei Nazarov: ”It was a tough game, the guys played well, Hungary played well. We had a couple of lucky breaks, scored goals played good on defence, all around the game was tough, everyone is trying to win, there is not a lot of games, only five games in this tournament.”
Rich Chernomaz: ”The refs called the right calls, maybe they missed some interference calls against them, the problem was that we were not moving our feet. We weren't jumping to checks, we were being beat to loose pucks, we were being beaten off the walls, it was causing us to take unnecessary penalties. We were being undisciplined with the sticks, we were stupid with the sticks. We can't get any momentum like that, we were manhandled on the powerplay, there 4 guys out worked our 5 guys.”
Photo: László Mudra