After a slow start Hungary pulled away to stay undefeated with a win over Estonia and to set up a tournament winning match against rivals Poland.
After backstopping Hungary to a shutout win against Lithuania Miklós Rajna had the day off with Zoltán Hetényi got the start, the rest of the lineup stayed the same.
Hungary jumped out to an early 1-0 lead when the first line, who did not have goal in the opening game put together a goal. Dániel Kóger put a shot on net that István Sofron banged home. Hungary had a number of scoring chances but it was the two babies that brought the second Hungarian goal together when Bence Stipsicz stole the puck on the blue line and sprung Vilmos Galló for a slick breakaway goal in his second goal in his second national team game. Hungary had a power play early in the second period when Kóger had a nice backhanded pass to the oncoming Sofron from the baseline that Sofron put past Koitmaa for the power play goal. Minutes later Robert Rooba took a nice pass from behind the net and put it past Hetényi who was hung out to dry by his defence. Just past the midway point of the game János Hári won the faceoff and Frank Banham scored from the edge of the crease to put Hungary back up by three. Hungary started to pull away in the period when Péter Vincze was left alone in the slot and he sniped home his first senior team goal. Later in the period the young forward scored his second of the game on the power play when he took a pass from Kóger and put the puck behind the Estonian keeper. In the closing minutes Andrew Sarauer tapped the puck in from the doorstep for another Hungarian power play goal.
LINE-UP
Kóger, Sarauer, Sofron
Bartalis, Hári, Banham
Kovács, G.Nagy, J.Vas
Galló, K.Nagy, Benk
Vincze
M.Vas, Pozsgai
Gőz, Kiss
Szirányi, Stipsicz
Mestyán
Hetényi (Rajna)
Coaches Corner:
Rich Chernomaz:I think we didn't play with enough fire in the first two periods, which we will need against Poland on Sunday. It was hard to get fired up against the weakest team, i was very happy with the third period of the game.
Jussi Tupamaki: We played really solid for two periods but we tried to push to hard in the third and we got caught but I am very proud of the way we played.
View from the ice
Bence Stipsicz:We started off a bit slow, not as fast as the day before, we got back on track which will get us back on track for the game on Sunday.
Péter Vincze: We had talked about take the faceoff and Krisztián Nagy won the faceoff that put me free, the second goal was on the power play where I didn't really have to do much work just put my stick on the puck. I’m very happy with getting my first points on home ice.
Poland-Lithuania 9-1
The second rated team in the tournament took care of business on there end to make their game on Sunday against Hungary a real championship game. Poland took a 2-0 late in the first period on goals by Pasiut and Chmielewski. Poland brought the heat in the second period when they put five in the back of the Lithuanian net. Dziubinski scored twice as Poland had a 7-0 lead after two period. In the third Poland scored twice more with Lithuania scoring their first goal of the tournament to have the final score be 9-1
THE HUNGARIAN SQUAD
Goalies (2): HETÉNYI Zoltán, RAJNA Miklós (Fehérvár AV19)
Defencemen (7): SZIRÁNYI Bence (Fehérvár AV19) KISS Dániel (UTE), MESTYÁN István, POZSGAI Tamás STIPSICZ Bence (MAC), GŐZ Balázs (DVTK) VAS Márton (Fassa, Seria A)
Forwards (13): BANHAM Frank, BARTALIS István, BENK András, KOVÁCS Csaba, KÓGER Dániel, NAGY Gergő, SARAUER Andrew, VINCZE Péter (Fehérvár AV19), NAGY Krisztián (MAC), SOFRON István (Klagenfürt, EBEL) HÁRI János (Leksand, Eliteserien), GALLÓ Vilmos (Linköpings SHL), VAS János (Slavia Praha, CZE2)
STAFF
Head coach: Rich Chernomaz
Coaches: Gergely Majoross, Péter Mayer, Tamás Sille, Viktor Tokaji
Video coach: Jukka Kontsas
Goalie coach: Gary Clark
SCHEDULE
2016. February 11th
Poland–Estonia 6-2
Hungary–Lithuania 4-0
2016. February 12th
Poland–Lithuania 9-1
Hungary–Estonia 7-1
2016. February 14th
14.30: Estonia–Lithuania
18.00: Hungary–Poland