It was important that Hungary start the first game of the 2014 Division 1A world championships with a win. After rivals Austria won in overtime against Ukraine and Slovenia lost to Japan Hungary had a great chance to take the lead right out of the gates in this week long race. Also it would be nice to just to get back at Korea after what happened in Budapest a year ago.
“I think they had some payback in their minds and came out strong and getting down five goals in a tournament like this you can't get back like this, it was a little too late,” said Brock Radunske after the game.
Korea came out strong and skated well as expected, but Hungar was able to withstand the early jitters until the game fell into its early flow. Bence Szirányi had a chance in the early part of the period and Arnold Varga hit the post on a short handed chance as well. Once Hungary started to play their game the shots started to come. In the middle of the period Hungary had a 5 on 3 for almost two minutes but Korea’s Sungje Park stood tall keeping Korea in the game. With Korea picking up their third penalty of the game Hungary was finally able to put a puck in the net when István Bartalis scored a powerplay goal. Márton Vas took a shot from inside the blueline that Park saved but was unable to corral the rebound which Bartalis put in the net from top of the crease. Hungary was up 2-0 on a redirection, András Benk took a pass from Balázs Sebők, turned to face the goal from the top of the right faceoff circle and took a wrist shot that glanced off of Zsot Azari’s left knee enough to put the Korean keeper out of position to make the save.
In the early parts of the second period Hungary looked like the stronger team, making crisp passes and moving the puck despite the ice not being in the best condition. Hungary got a big break at the expense of Sebők when Michael Swift took him out on a hit that was determined not to be legal. Swift was booked for checking to the head and was sent to the showers early with a game misconduct, Hungary took advantage of the five minute power play to go up by three. As the team cycled the puck around Azari took a pass from Viktor Tokaji on the outside of the left faceoff circle, drifted in and shot out the far corner of the goal. Once the two teams were playing at full strength the game was more balanced however Korea was playing with more urgency. At 34:27 János Hári skated down the right wing on the powerplay, passed the puck back to the trailing István Sofron who skated through the slot and took a shot on goal that beat Park to make it 4-0. The power play goals kept on coming throughout the game as Brock Radunske ended the shutout for Zoltán Hetényi on a power play goal when he took a pass down low, skated through in front of the crease and put the puck past Hetényi. It looked like Hungary would have the game in the bag when Csaba Kovács, János Vas and Hári combined for a nice goal to make it 5-1. Vas had left the puck for Hári in the right corner, who skated behind the goal and made a backhanded pass to Kovács who put the puck in the goal as the goalie was looking the other way
With Hungary holding a 5-1 leading going into the third period everyone was thinking about last year when Hungary imploded after jumping out to the large lead. Not even a minute into the period Bartalis jumped on a turnover in the neutral zone, skated in with a defender draped over him and made it 6-1 with a snap of the wrist. Radunske cut into the Hungarian lead as Radunske dumped the puck off to Kisung Kim who put a shot on net, Radunske was in the right place to put the rebound in to make it 6-2. “I was very satisfied with our performance in the first two periods. We put a lot of pressure in Korea’s end. They took some penalties that were costly and gave us a 6-1 lead” said coach Rich Chernomaz after the game. At this time Korea switched keepers, in came Hoseung Son for Park and the shakeup looked to pay off as Korea scored another goal to cut Hungary’s lead to three. Shanghoon Shin took a well placed breakout pass at center ice skated in on the break away and slipped the puck in between Hetényi’s legs. With a chance to come back and maybe send the game into overtime Korea started to look strong, where as on teh other side Hungary started to look flat. Korea came within two goals as they took advantage of another powerplay, This time Don Ku Lee took a blast from the blue line that looked as if Hetényi did not see any of and ended up in the cage. In the closing minutes of two goal game Tamás Pozsgai was called for interference, with a man advantage Korea pulled their goalie to have a six on four but Bartalis completed his hattrick with an empty net goal to set the final score at 7-4. A win is a win but it was too close for comfort.
Krisztián Nagy summed up the game pretty accurately “I guess we started out pretty good in the first period, than in the second we got into a little bit of slump with those penalties but after all we finished with a solid period. In the third we believed that this game is gonna be easy but they came back from our mistakes which was 2 penalties again. Fortunately we kept ourselves tight in the D zone and won the game with an empty netter by Bartalis”.
Standings
Hungary 3 points
Japan 3 points
Austria 2 points
Ukraine 1 point
Slovenia 0 points
Korea 0 points
Leading Scorers
Points: 3, István Bartalis, János Hári, János Vas, Hungary
Goals: 3, István Bartalis, Hungary
Assists: 3, János Hári, János Vas, Hungary
Photo: László Mudra