MOL-Liga update

This year’s MOL-Liga has seven teams. Sapa Fehervar AV19 made the jump to the Austrian Erste Bank League, while the Bucharest Steaua Rangers moved back into the Romanian Hockey League due to financial issues. The league was able to pick up FTC Novy Zamky (Slovakia) to round out this year’s competitors.

The top four teams make the playoffs which will start in March. If a non-Hungarian team wins the league, there will be a playoff between the two top Hungarian teams to award a Hungarian MOL-League champion.

Teams receive three points for a regulation or overtime win, two points for a shootout win, one point for an overtime or shootout loss and no points for a regulation loss. Records for teams will be shown in this format for each of the teams below.

Season in Review

As of 6 November, the league is 70 games into their 167 games season. There is currently a two week break for the European 2014 Winter Olympic Qualifiers, with action resuming on 16 November.

At the top and the bottom of the league, there have not been any surprises. There is a bit of a log jam in the middle for the final three playoff spots that should make the rest of the season exciting. Below is a breakdown of each team’s season so far.

DAB Docler (Dunaujvaros, Hungary) - Current Record: 18-1-1-1 – 57 Points (First Place)

DAB Docler have rode last year’s shared first place finish and MOL-League championship to jump way out front in the standings this year so far. They currently have four of the five top scorers in the league (Galanisz (13-21-34), Pavuk (9-23-32), Szappanos (19-11-30) and Azari (13-15-28)) who are also leading in the plus/minus category (+23, +23, +22, +22, respectively). Peter Sevela, DAB’s goaltender, is also having a brilliant season; he is sitting on a near 96% save percentage and 1.32 goals against average. Maybe most impressive is that Sevela has logged more minutes in net than any other keeper this season. It is no wonder why this team has only one regulation loss in 21 games!

HC Novy Zamky (Novy Zamky, Slovakia) – Current Record: 12-1-0-8 – 38 Points (Second Place)

Sitting only four points ahead in second place, Novy Zamky has had a great start in its first season in the MOL-League. Novy Zamky plays a well-rounded team game; though there individual players do not show up as prominently as some of the other MOL-League teams at the top of the stat sheet, they have a number of contributors on a game-to-game basis. No player is less than -3 on the season so far and nearly 70% of their roster is in the plus. They also have an impressive goaltender duo in Zima and Beno. While Zima logs most of the time between the pipes, both keepers have an impressive 92% save percentage.

Miskolci Jegesmedvek (Miskolc, Hungary) – Current Record: 10-2-0-8 – 34 Points (Third Place)

The Miskolc Polar Bears have been a pleasant surprise this season. They have jumped ahead of both Romanian teams up to this point in the season and only sit four points behind Novy Zamky with one less game played. Miskolc also has the most impressive hockey environment I have experienced in the MOL-Liga. Their arena is easily filled on game day at 1,500 seats every game and a strong standing room crowd. They also provide the full sports experience with a skating polar bear, big screen, cheerleaders and drums. They have given their fans something fun to watch this year.

Miskolc is going to continue to need strong play from Saluga and Gergo Nagy (15-18-33 and 11-16-27, respectively) as well as strong net play from Gyenes (92.7%; 1.98 GAA) to stay in the playoff race.

HSC Csikszereda (Miercurea-Ciuc, Romania) – Current Record: 9-1-2-6 – 31 Points (Fourth Place)

HSC Csikszereda’s season has been a bit of a disappointment so far. After being a top of the table last season, this season has been off to a slow start. The team is being outscored 54-57 and has been inconsistent. The club had eight suspensions at one point in the season as what has been called a “miscommunication” issue over player contracts. Laszlo Hodos has been hired into the vacant Club Manager position with the hopes of getting the team back on track.

Despite the lackluster play from the six-year reigning Romanian champs, Csikszereda sits in the final playoff spot and is a winning streak away from solidifying their position in the playoff run. Novak (25 points) will have to continue with his aggressive play where he has put the puck on goal 55 more times than the next highest shooter on the roster. The team also needs to play better defense all-around to help Kozuch in the net, who currently ranks as the 8th keeper in the league despite fairly good stats.

ASC Corona Brasov (Brasov, Romania) – Current Record: 6-1-2-9 – 22 Points (Fifth Place)

After finishing third last season, Brasov is going to need a strong run to get back into the playoff hunt. With the exception of Joshua Bonar (10-12-22), the rest of the team is either deep in the minus category or hovering around even. The Hornets have scored the second least amount of goals in the league while allowing in the third most. Patrik Polc has also been a bright spot for the team in some sense. While he is saving over 92% of his shots, he has seen more shots than any other keeper in the league (100 more than the next closest keeper) and has a 3.64 GAA.

Brasov has played stronger over the past few weeks, but ran into games against the league’s best and were only able to escape with three points in two weeks. This renewed play is going to have to turn into points in the table if this team is going to overtake their Romanian counterparts for the last playoff spot.

Ferencvaros-ESMTK (Budapest/Pesterzsbet, Hungary) Current Record: 4-3-2-12 (Sixth Place)

There has been no lack of off-the-ice drama with Ferencvaros this year that could not have helped in their slow start. A new coach was installed this season, the team is now an “amateur” team - which means the players are working other jobs - and there were plans of a fan boycott due to a physical altercation between the new coach and two fans. In some sense, only being four games out of a playoff spot is a bit of a silver lining.

Three keepers have been in the net this season and the two logging the most minutes average four and five goals a game. Scoring has not been as a problem for the team, currently scoring the fourth most in the league. This has been led by Gabor Kiss with 19 points, but he is struggling with a -6 in the plus/minus category. Defense and goaltending need to be stepped up without too much of a loss in offensive production if FTC is going to make a run at the postseason.

Ujpest TE (Budapest/Ujpest, Hungary) Current Record: 1-1-3-16 (Seventh Place)

The Ultras have had another hard run this season. After just recently being able to ascend out of some financial issues, the team has no money to spend on acquiring players. Ujpest puts forward a very young and inexperienced roster because of this and it shows on the ice. While a playoff spot for this
team is pretty much out of reach this season without serious roster changes in the very near future, there is no doubt that this is an improved team from last season – they are within two points of their final last season record with more than half of the season left.

This team will continue to improve under Hungarian hockey legend Janos Ancsin and new coach Balint Fekti. Ujpest also has a strong youth program that will continue to feed young, albeit more experienced players, into the club. If in-season signings of Pal, Schellin Adam Fekti and Odry are able to create some club chemistry, a late season run could help bring some confidence to a team looking to contend next season. Starting goaltender Jozsef Pleszkan also has a bright future. At times, he plays brilliantly and with some more experience he will be hard to get the puck past.

Things To Watch

Without some miracles or huge setbacks, DAB Dolcer and Ujpest will remain in first and last place. The late season fight will be between teams two through six. If Brasov and Ferencvaros can step up, there could be a real race to the finish to get into the playoffs. This means Brasov is going to have to start scoring and Ferencvaros is going to have to get a lot better defensively.

If neither of these teams step up, then the real race will be for home ice advantage between Novy Zamky, Miskolc and Csikszereda. This could be a huge deal since Csikszereda’s opponent will either have to make the long trip to Romania or force the Romanian side to travel to Hungary or Slovakia.

Follow the league

The MOL-Liga and all of the clubs have websites, but in their country’s languages. However, with Google Chrome (or other potential browsers) all of the sites are easily translated into English. There is also a strong hockey blog covering the league (jegkorong.hu), which also will need to be translated unless you have Hungarian language knowledge. HSC Csikszereda has an English language site that is up-to-date and very informative as well (http://www.hsccsikszereda.com/).

Again, Tim will be providing interviews and weekly updates for EuroHockey.com. For more frequent updates, follow him on Twitter (@bourciertm) or on his blog bourciertm.wordpress.com.

 

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