Slovakia spoils Hungary’s return

07 May 2016Markus Nisius»

With an easy 4-1 win Slovakia picked up the first three points on their way to the quarterfinals. Hungary showed a good effort, but the quality was certainly much higher on the other side.

Hungary is competing in the top division for the first time since 2009, but they are looking to end a waiting period of an even bigger historic dimension. Since they failed to win any games in their participitations in 2009 and 1964, the Hungarian team is trying to get its first victory on the top level since 1939 when they defeated Belgium by an 8-1 score in order to finish 7^th.

Slovakia however was not the opponent they were eyeing to do so. As expected Slovakia controlled the game early on and more and more shots kept coming towards Hungarian goalie Miklos Rajna. After 7:07 minutes Tomas Marcinko used a rebound off a Granak shot to bring the Slovaks ahead. Six minutes later Hungary got its chance to tie the game on their first powerplay after an interference call against Tomas Hrnka, that actually looked like a clean hit. And the Slovakian bench might have become even more upset when Canadian-born Frank Banham scored for Hungary, deflecting a shot from Vilmos Gallo with his skate standing in the crease.

But Slovakian officials did not start any discussions and concentrated on remaining the game and regaining the lead, which worked out well with 2:17 minutes left in the first period. Tomas Jurco deflected a shot from Andrej Sekera and Slovakia was up again by 2-1.

In the second period Slovakia controlled the game even better and could add the third goal with a real beauty. Sekera found Jurco at the boards behind the goal, Jurco gave the puck back to him with a wonderful spin-around move and Sekera hit it in the net with a one-timer. Hungary could only create scoring chances through individual mistakes in the Slovakian defense. Going into the second break the biggest threat to the Slovaks was loosing focus.

In the last period Hungary was found in the offensive end a bit more again and started forcing penalties to the Slovakian side. With 3 minutes to go Hungarian coach Rich Chernomaz pulled goalie Rajna, a decision that came back like a boomerang when Patrik Lusnak scored into the empty net just 30 seconds later to give the game the final score of 4-1.

The next opponent for Slovakia will be France tomorrow evening. Hungary's next chance to get their long awaited victory will be no other team than Canada tomorrow in the midday game.