U18: Hungary beats Japan for Gold, 1 game left

For their second to last game at the U18 Division 1/B world championships in Asiago Italy Hungary took on the only other undefeated team, Japan. The game was a de facto gold medal game in some ways.

Glen Williamson as he has all world championships kept on rotating his goalies, this time Dávid Kovács starting in net with Martin Szeles being the backup, Márk Almási was missing because of a minor injury. Japan being a well skating team was able to keep puck position in the first period however was not able to set up an offensive attack and managed only 3 shots on net. Hungary did kill the only penalty of the first period.

There was a lot more excitement in the second period compared to the first, Japan took a 1-0 lead when they scored a goal in the first minute of the second period, minutes later Márk Vas sprang Ákos Szigeti, who skated in on a break away and nicely put the puck past the Japanese goalie. Japan took a 2-1 lead on a power play goal, but Hungary managed to pie it up again. This time Donát Szita was awarded a penalty shot that he converted to make it 2-2.

The game stayed tied until five minutes into the third period when Renátó Tóth  skated on and took a snipe from the left faceoff dot that made into the back up the net. Both teams had a number of scoring chances both on even strength as well as on the power play. In the last minute of play Japan pulled their goalie for the extra attacker and then called timeout with 14 seconds left. Bálint Horváth lifted the puck into the empty net to make it 4-2 for Hungary as they picked up the win and won promotion to Division 1/A, with one game left

Player of the game for Hungary was Rajmond Bukor.

Line up
Kovács D. (Szeles M.)
Szécsi P., Bugár G. - Kreisz B., Molnár D., Szigeti Á.
Bukor R., Kiss R. - Szita D., Majoross B., Péter A.
Fejes N., Erdély B. - Tóth R., Kiss P., Horváth B.
Vas M., Szabó D. - Révész M., Nagy Á.