After Friday’s 8-0 win over Romania Head Coach Rich Chernomaz was very happy with the way his team played within the 1-3-1 system and how they played defensively, but everyone knew that the game against Poland on Saturday would be the real test.
Chernomaz had his staff flipped the goalies with Miklós Rajna getting the start today with Bence Bálizs on the bench, for the second game in a row Hungary had someone debuting in the national team, After Csanád Erdély played for the first time in the team against Romania Andrew Sarauer will have the honor. Also playing today after getting the day off on Friday was defencemen Adrián Hüffner and Tamás Gröschl along with forwards Csaba Kovács, János Vas and Ladislav Sikorcin. Getting the day off was the four “baby” forwards, Erdály, Tamás Sárpátki, Péter Vincze, Krisztián Nagy along with young defencemen Attila Reiter and Dániel Kiss.
Poland struck first with András Benk serving a slashing penalty the home team converted thier first power play chance. After the goal Rajna seeded to calm down as the period went on, Csaba Kovács had breakaway that was stuffed by Polish goalie Rafal Radziszewski. Hungary was not able to convert either power play chance
Hungary played basically the opening five minutes of the second period with the man advantage but Hungary was not able to put the puck past the Polish keeper. The tide looked to have change as Hungary was undisciplined at one point Poland had a 5 on 3 that Hungary managed to kill.
The third period continued where the second period left off in a battle of two goalies, both keepers stood tall as they defended their cage. There was a penalty called against János Vas that Chernomaz was not the biggest fan of. As usual in a tight game things started to get chippy in the third period. Rajna kept on coming up with great saves but in the end it was not enough as Poland scored an empty net goal to finish the game 2-0 for Poland.
View from the ice
“Everyone did what they needed to do, but it is what it is.Next time we have to pay attention to playing with the max effort from start to finish. If this was the world championships maybe there will be a video replay that turns in our favor, and everything turns out better for us.” Miklós Rajna
Starting Line combinations
Metcalfe-Sarauer-Sikorcin
Kóger-Vas J.-Sofron
Kovács-Berta-Magosi
Benk, Sebők, Azari
Mestyán-Szirányi
Orbán-Gröschl
Gőz-Varga
Hüffner-Pozsgai
Rajna (Bálizs)
The Hungarian Squad
Goalies (2): BÁLIZS Bence (Miskolci Jegesmedvék), RAJNA Miklós (Fehérvár AV19)
Defensmen (10): KISS Dániel (Újpest) ORBÁN Attila, REITER Attila, SZIRÁNYI Bence, VARGA Arnold (Fehérvár AV19), GRÖSCHL Tamás, HÜFFNER Adrián, POZSGAI Tamás, MESTYÁN Tamás (Dab.Docler), GŐZ Balázs (Miskolci Jegesmedvék),
Forwards (16): AZARI Zsolt (Dab.Docler), BENK András, KOVÁCS Csaba, KÓGER Dániel, MAGOSI Bálint, SÁRPÁTKI Tamás, SIKORCIN Ladislav, EREDÉLY Csanád, VINCZE Péter, SARAUER Andrew (Fehérvár AV19), METCALFE Tyler, NAGY Krisztián (Miskolci Jegesmedvék), BERTA Ákos (Debreceni HK), SEBŐK Balázs (Kärpät/Hokki, FIN), SOFRON István (Krefeld Pinguine, GER), VAS János (Slavia Praha, CZE)
Coaching Staff
Head Coach: Rich Chernomaz
Assistant Coaches: Gergely Majoross, Tamás Sille, Diego Scandella
Goalie Coach: Gary Clark
EIHC Schedule
Friday Hungary-Romania 8-0
Saturday Poland-Hungary 2-0
Sunday 16:00 Ukraine