French Preview

After yesterdays loss to Latvia, Hungary was back on the ice this morning for their game day skate. The players said they felt great on the ice despite having played the previous night. The coaching staff decided to make some changes in the lineup for today’s game. The defensive pairings are staying the same, only the forward lines were juggled, Máté Garbacz will be starting in net.

Line against France
Szalma, Horváth, Szita
Révész, Péter, Mihály
Tóth, Papp, Majoross
Molnár, Kreisz, Vértes
Szigeti

Szabó, Fejes
Kiss, Sándor
Pokornyi, Sarcia
Vas

Garbacz (B.Tóth

After playing a hard fought battle against Latvia, Hungary will be back on the ice against France at 19:00. In their opening game of the tournament France defeated Austria by the score of 6-1. In November in a tournament in Slovenia the Hungarian U20 team had played France and beaten them by the score of 3-2 with Gergely Tóth, Roland Kiss and Zsolt Szalma scoring goals. The French roster went through some turnover since then and there are 6 players now on the team that were not in Slovenia.

The head coach for France is Dany Gélinas who in the past has worked with the national teams of France and Slovenia. France has a number of players to keep an eye on, one of them is Alexandre Texier who plays in KalPa, like Brúnó Kreisz but plays with the senior team and is teammates with Balázs Sebők, he was also drafted last year by the Blue Jackets in the second round. Louis Boudon and Max Leroux are two other player to keep an eye on.

Dávid Kiss, assistant coach: The French team is a strong attacking team that plays a North American style of hockey. They have 6 new players on their roster that were not there in Slovenia, and these players all play outside of France. They for check very aggressively and shoot a lot on net, they are similar to us. We hope to play a close game with them today.

Donát Szita, forward: Yesterday we had a good game against Latvia, we were a bit nervous but it was  good game. The French started the tournament with a big win against Austria which shows what kind of team they are. We are not worried about this, we hope to show our best and we think this will be enough for a win. We are not really thinking about the last time we faced France since they have changed since then.

Division 1/A World Championships Schedule:
HUNGARY-Latvia 1-4
HUNGARY-France Monday, 19:00
HUNGARY-Kazakstan Wednesday 15:30
HUNGARY-Germany Friday 13:00
HUNGARY-Austria Saturday 16:00

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