The host nation Hungary opened up the junior world championships against the Lithuanian national team.
Rich Chernomaz's boys started the game a bit slow as Danielius Nomanovas scored an early goal first for Lithuania. The rest of the first and the second period remained the same, Hungary down by one. The third period brought a shift in the game as Balázs Sebők set up Erik Keresztury for the tying goal in the first minute of the third period. Hungary went up by one as Áron Könczei and Attila Reiter assisted on Ferenc Kocsis' power play goal. Vilmos Galló found the back of the net at 52:31 with Könczei registering his second assist of the night and László Ritó getting on the scoring sheet as well. Hungary scored two more power play goals in the period the first one coming off the stick of Csanád Erdély who had Tamás Láday and Könczei getting the helpers. The last goal of the night came in the last minute of play as Könczei scored off of an Erdély and Kocsis pass.
When the dust had finally settled Hungary scored zero goals in the first 40 minute of play and five in the last 20, with Könczei scoring one goal and three assists.
"The first game is always the hardest, at the beginning were playing very rigid and we were giving the Lithuanians a lot of chances. In the second period we were a bit lucky and [Olivér] Ágoston kept us in the game. In the third period we finally started to play and picked up the pace and kept them under pressure," said head coach Rich Chernomaz after the game.
There were two other matches on the first day of the U20 world championships, first game of the tournament was Netherlands against Estonia. The Dutch jumped out to an early 1-0 lead on a Cas Staps goal but Estonia was able to make it 1-1 in the last minute of the period when Daniil Fursa found the back of the net. Guus van Nes scored 25 later to give the Dutch the one goal lead after the first 20 minutes. After a scoreless second period Netherlands dominated the third period as they scored a third goal five minutes into the period when Kilian van Gorp scored, at the end Staps scored his second of the game as an empty netter.
The last game of the night was Romania taking on Croatia. Croatia jumped out thanks to a Matija Milicic goal, Romania tied it up later in the first when Szabolcs Hildebrand found the back of the net. Mátyás Biró gave Romania the lead and Gergő Biró scored one more goal in the third to give the Romanians a two goal win.
Leading scorers
Points: 4, Áron Könczei
Goals: 2, Cas Staps
Assists: 3, Áron Könczei
Standings
Hungary 3 points
Netherlands 3 points
Romania 3 points
Croatia 0 points
Estonia 0 points
Lithuania 0 points
Szabolcs Závodszky
@Zavodszky