Hungary was disappointed with their loss to France the night before but there was no time dwell on this as the team was back on the ice on Wednesday against probably the second best team in the group, Finland.
Rich Chernomaz and his staff gave Ádám Vay the start in net meaning that every goal had started a game in the tournament, Zoltán Hetényi was the backup for the game, getting back in the lineup was Bálint Magosi and István Mestyan as well. The coaching staff decided to scratch Csaba Kovács, Frank Banham and Miklós Rajna.
The game started with an early scoring chance for Finland however minutes later István Bartalis missed high on the Finland net. In the first half of the period Hungary was keeping the pace that Finland was dictating. Hungary found themselves in a 5 on 3 penalty kill for about a minute and a half but thanks to a number of timely clearings and saves by Vay Finland did not capitalize on their chances.
The second period Finland took control of the game and was bombarding the Hungarian net. Hungary would also kill a penalty in the first half of the period. After the penalty was killed and some solid forechecking Hungary started to create some chances. The pace of the game also changed as well along with the physicality. Finland broke the ice late in the second period, after the puck was cycled around, Atte Ohtamaa took a pass on the left faceoff dot, waited and beat and put it past Vay. In the second period Finland had 25 shots on net from which only one made it through.
The bombardment of Vay’s goal continued into the third period, Hungary kept on holding off the waves of attacks by the Scandinavian nation. At about the midway point of the third period Mikael Granlund and Mikko Koivu came down on a two on one against Márton Vas with the former setting up the later for a one timer to make it 2-0. Finland had two late power plays in the third period, Hungary killed the first one however Aleksander Barkov scored from the slot to make it 3-0. Finland ended up with over 50 shots on net.
Lineup
Kóger Sarauer Galló
G.Nagy Bartalis Sofron
K.Nagy J.Vas Benk
Erdély Sebők Magosi
Stipsicz M.Vas
Wehrs Szirányi
Sagert Dudás
Mesztyán Garát
Vay (Hetényi)
World Championships, Russia, Group B (St. Petersburg)
May 7th, 12.15 (11.15): Slovakia–HUNGARY 4-1
May 8th, 12.15 (11.15): HUNGARY–Canada 1-7
May 10th, 20.15 (19.15): HUNGARY–France 2-6
May 11th, 20.15 (19.15): Finland–HUNGARY 3-0
May 13th, 16.15 (15.15): USA–HUNGARY
May 14th, 16.15 (15.15): HUNGARY–Belarus
May 16th, 20.15 (19.15): German
HUNGARIAN ROSTER
Goalies (3): HETÉNYI Zoltán, RAJNA Miklós (Fehérvár AV19), VAY Ádám (Debreceni HK)
Defencemen (8): SZIRÁNYI Bence, WEHRS Kevin (Fehérvár), 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), MAGOSI Bálint (Briancon), NAGY Krisztián (MAC), SEBŐK Balázs (KalPa), SOFRON István (Klagenfurt), VAS János (Slavia Praha)