The U20 Hungarian national team starts their preparation for the Division 1B World Championships that will be held in Dunaujváros, this week. Coach Rich Chernomaz has called in a squad of 29 players that is made up of 3 goalies, 10 defenceman and 16 forwards.
During the season the coaching staff has had a number of opportunities to observe the players not only on film and scouting them at games but also in training camps, this will be the fifth training camp for the U20 team since the start of the 2014-15 season.
Up until now five different goalies have taken part in the previous training camps at one time or another with Gergely Arany and Dániel Kornakker being the two that have been in the squad all along, joining them will be János Lajcs. Arany and Kornakker backstopped the U18 team last year to a gold medal at the D1 B world championships. All three will be in Dunaújváros as the final roster will have two goalies and a third one can be called up incase of injury.
The goalie position looks to be a stable part of the roster but arguably the strongest unit will be on the blue line as Chernomaz will have a hard time figuring out which seven or eight players to keep from the 10 that are in the squad right now. The defensive unit has been whittled down from 22 to the current 10. Two of the defensmen have been playing junior hockey in the U.S. this season as Tamás Láday is in Spokane and Zsombor Garát is in Boston. Of the 10 players only two, András Herszényi and Gellért Hruby are trying to make their first world championship roster.
The forward unit is experienced as well with a number of players playing in senior games with their club teams. Ferenc Kocsis, Csanád Erdély, and Péter Vincze have been playing together all season as one line in the EBEL because of injuries that have come up for Fehérvár. The team could also have a line full of forwards that are playing in the top junior leagues in Europe as Vilmos Gallo is in Sweden, Erik Keresztury is in Germany and Zsombor Kiss is in Switzerland. There will be eleven forwards in camp who have represented Hungary at a world championships in the past and the staff has had 30 different forwards in the training camps.
Assisting Chernomaz will be a staff made up of assistants Zoltán Szilassy and Tamás Sille and goalie coach Gary Clark.
The official Hungarian entry list with the IIHF can be found here
All other information about the championship can be found here