On the second day of the three game EIHC tournament in Gdansk, Poland the Hungarian ice hockey team will be taking on the host team Friday night. The two teams should be relatively familiar with each other since it seems that everytime Hungary participates in a European Ice Hockey Challenge tournament Poland is one of the teams they face. 

The Polish federation has gone through same changes in recent years with bringing in Russians to bring the national team to a higher level. The Russian national team coach from the 2010 Vancouver Olympic games, Vyacheslav Bykov is the general manager with his former assistant coach Igor Zakharin now the Polish team head coach. In November Hungary had a chance to see the changes up close as the two teams played to a 1-1 draw after regulation and overtime with Hungary winning the game in the shootout, in the Poland won the tournament.

Not only was it easy to see from the boxscore that this is not the same Polish team we are used to be but it was pretty evident from the ice as well

“They were a hard working team with some forwards who skated well with the puck. I think we created good scoring chances from below their goal line if I remember correctly but all in all they were a solid group,” said Tyler Metcalfe who played in the November match.

Poland had 18 players play Thursday night against Italy that dressed against Hungary, which was pretty much the same roster that they had at the world championships. Most of the Polish players have spent their careers playing at home in the domestic league. The number one keeper for the national team has been Przemyslaw Odraby who has usually had fantastic numbers when playing in the national team compared to his club teams.

The group of blueliners is lead by the veteran Adam Borzecki who has experience not only playing at the international level but also in North America, playing junior hockey in the QMJHL and professionally in the ECHL and AHL before making the move back to Europe. Rafal Dutka is another defenseman who has been a staple of the national team for years.

The forward unit much like the defensemen look to be a group of skaters who have been playing together with the national team for a number of years. Krystian Dziubinski and Marcin Kolusz being two forwards with North American experience. Dziubinski played juniors in the NAHL and Kolusz was drafted by the Minnesota Wild and played one season of juniors in the WHL. One forward to keep an eye on is the power forward Adam Baginski who had a bit of a tussle against Csaba Kovács the last time the two teams played, it will be interesting to see if the two of them have a go at it again. The 31 year old Mikolaj Lopuski is having a great year for his team GKS Tychy having 41 points in 27 games.

The Polish roster overall looks similar to the Hungarian based off of age but the Hungarian resume looks slightly better. However, Hungary has a handful of young new skaters. Metcalfe put it the best at what to watch for as a Hungarian fan “It will be fun to watch the game(s) this week especially with how many new/different players we/Hungary have suiting up.”

Words: Szabolcs Závodszky @Zavodszky