Last season the season UTE ended earlier than the team would have liked as they were eliminated in the first round of the playoffs. The back bone of the team returns and with some key offseason additions the club is gunning for an appearance in the finals.
Head coach Zoltán Szilassy is entering his fifth season on the bench for UTE, he will be assisted by his long time assistant coach Zsolt Baróti.
Ales Sila is back between the pipes for UTE, he had a large workload last season as Olivér Ágoston was dealing with injuries and illness. Last year both Máté Sági and Levente Márkus made this pro debuts, the two teenagers should get more playing time this season.
During the offseason UTE brought in reinforcements to bolster their back line. The club has a lot of depth has they picked up Austrian national team player Florian Iberer along with Hungarian national team player Márk Szaller. Phil Kiss was also added in the offseason. These three players join a stable of strong blueliners in Peter Huba, Attila Kovács and Hungarian national team players Nilan Nagy and Arnold Varga. Dávid Pokornyi is still only 18 but is entering his third season of pro hockey.
The core of the forward unit returns from last season. During the offseason Karol Csányi and Andrej Hebar come back to Újpest after being away for one season. The club also picked up Ferenc Kocsis who is still considered a young forward with a scoring touch. The coaching staff is expecting a lot from former NHL draft pick Taylor Stefishen. The veteran core who are expected to be leaders on and off the ice are András Benk, Ladislav Sikorcin and Anze Ropret. Martin Sági and Kristóf Schmál are two young forward who have a style of play that can fit in the bottom two lines, however are skilled enough to fill in the top two as well. Zsolt Szalma had a breakout season last year and hopes to build off of the 2017-18 campaign. Ákos Horváth and Sebestyén Kovács are two young prospects that round out the forwards.
Zoltán Szilassy, head coach: There are four, five teams in the league that can say that their goal for the season is to win the championship, we are one of those teams. We first need to make the playoffs and need to be peaking at the right time. We want to be the top team in Hungary and to win the title. There are a number of strong opponents that we will face who signed quality players in the offseason. We made some changes during the offseason, mostly on the defensive side and we have some new imports, what really helps us is that Nilan Nagy and Phil Kiss have Hungarian citizenship, this means that we were able to bring in more imports. This also adds depth to our team along with Karol Csányi coming back this year. In the past we used to go with two offensive scoring lines and two lines that were more defensive. This year we want all of our lines to play both ways. We have a lineup now, but we have no problem with rotating the players during the preseason games. During the regular season we want to be at the top end of the standings and figure out the perfect chemistry during the regular season. We would also give our young players more playing time. We look to have two good goalies this year with Ágoston being helth.
Players added: Florian Iberer (Litvinov, Czech Extraliga), Phil Kiss (Curry College NCAA3), Ferenc Kocsis, Márk Szaller (Fehérvár), Karol Csányi (Nyitra, Slovak Extraliga), Andrej Hebar (Olimpija, AlpsHL), Taylor Stefishen (Atlanta, ECHL)
Players who left: Krisztián Dósa, Ádám Hegyi (Ferencváros), Dániel Kiss (DVTK), Roland Kiss (Fehérvár Titánok), Erik Caladi (Nyitra, Slovak Extraliga), Martin Frolik (Sonthofen, GER3), Márton Pápa, Martin Turbucz (Vasas), Ádám Pichler (unknown), Csaba Kovács (?)
