For their second to last game before the A-Pool World Championships the Hungarian national team took on the other promoted team from last years Division 1/A, Kazakhstan.
Head coach Rich Chernomaz had Csanád Erdély for his disposal for the first time all year, getting the start in net was Miklós Rajna started in net with Bence Bálizs as the backup. Not dressing today was János Vas, Csaba Kovács, Bálint Magosi, Dániel Kiss, Attila Orbán, Ádám Vay and Zoltán Hetényi.
Kazakhstan took a 1-0 lead just about five minutes into the game when they took advantage of their first power play of the game. The Kazakh lead did not last long, less than a minute later Hungary tied it up. Frank Banham sent the puck down low to Jesse Dudás who took the puck behind the goal and centered it to the oncoming Vilmos Galló who put into the back of the net. Later in the period Hungary managed to score a power play goal of their own on a play that they had scored on during the world championships last year. The puck went up to István Sofron from Dudás, across to Frank ‘the Tank’ who one timed a rocket past the Kazakh goalie.
The second period brought more excitement as both teams had scoring chances and managed to continue the high paced back and forth game. Galló, Bartalis and Sebők all had scoring chances but but just as Rajna stood tall in net so did Kolesnik for Kazakhstan. Just past the halfway point of the period Hungary switched goalies as planned with Bálizs coming in for Rajna, who continued the outstanding goaltending that Rajna had started.
The third period started off like the second period, scoring chances on both ends with the goalies playing great. This continued on until about ten minutes left in the game when after a defensive lapse Kazakhstan had a two on one that they managed to score on to tie the game up. Hungary had a late penalty that they managed to kill, however minutes later Brandon Bochenski jumped on a loose puck and put it past Bálizs near side. Hungary pulled their goalie with 70 seconds left in the game.
Lineup
G.Nagy Bartalis Terbócs
Koger Sarauer Sofron
Sebők Galló Banham
Benk K.Nagy Könczei
Erdély
Sagert Dudás
Stipsicz M. Vas
Mestyán Szirányi
Garát Wehrs
Rajna/Bálizs
ROSTER
Goalies (4): BÁLIZS Bence (MAC Budapest), HETÉNYI Zoltán, RAJNA Miklós (Fehérvár AV19), VAY Ádám (Debreceni HK)
Defencemen (10): ORBÁN Attila, SZIRÁNYI Bence, WEHRS Kevin (Fehérvár), KISS Dániel (UTE), GARÁT Zsombor, MESTYÁN István, STIPSICZ Bence (MAC), DUDÁS Jesse, SAGERT Kalvin, (DVTK), VAS Márton (Fassa)
Forwards (16): BANHAM Frank, BARTALIS István, BENK András, KOVÁCS Csaba, KÓGER Dániel, NAGY Gergő, SARAUER Andrew (Fehérvár) ERDÉLY Csanád (Sioux Falls), GALLÓ Vilmos (Linköping), KÖNCZEI Áron (Debrecen), MAGOSI Bálint (Briancon), NAGY Krisztián, TERBÓCS István (MAC), SEBŐK Balázs (KalPa), SOFRON István (Klagenfurt), VAS János (Slavia Praha)
SPRING SCHEDULE
Exhibition games
April 15th, Friday, 18.00 (Budapest): Hungary-Austria 4-0
April 16th, Saturday, 16.30 (Vienna): Austria-Hungary 1-3
April 20th Wednesday, 19.00 (Budapest): Hungary-Slovenia 0-3
April 29th, Friday, 19.00 (Budapest): Hungary-Kazakhstan 2-3
April 30th, Saturday, 19.00 (Budapest): v Russia B