After one season being away ERSTE Liga hockey is back in Debrecen under a new club and new colors but hopefully the same perennial playoff hockey that they had before.
The first three seasons that Debrecen had top flight hockey the team made the playoffs, because of financial reasons the club had to fold. This year in conjunction with the local university hockey back under the new name of DEAC. DEAC Hopes to continue from where Debreceni HK had left off in being playoff hockey team.
David Musial will be the head coach for DEAC this season, the ERSTE Liga is not new to the Czech coach as he was the head coach for Dunaújváros last season but finished the season as the an assistant with HKM Zvolen in the SLovak Extraliga. Helping him out will be Áron Kecskeméti who has come over from Ferencváros.
The goalie situation has the combination of veteran experience and youth. The starting goalie will be former national team goalie Zoltán Hetényi who spent last season with the Knoxville Ice Bears. In the past Hetényi has played in the EBEL and the Liiga. Backing him up will be Péter Nagy who has played a couple of games in the ERSTE Liga.
It is safe to say that DEAC has four veteran blueliners however they do not have much depth on the roster in that area. After retiring halfway through the season the former nation team player Péter Hetényi decided to join his brother Zoltán in Debrecen. Another player with Hungarian national team experience, Bronson Kovács is back in Debrecen after spending the past two seasons with MAC. The bruising defender hopes to have a bounce back season and find his goal scoring touch. Jiri Behal and Nico Vuorijarvi are two import players who should round out the top two defensive pairings with Kovács and Hetényi. Ákos Berta will probably get playing time both as a defenseman and as a forward. Debrecen picked up a young defenseman from Fehérvár in Arnold Antal. Home grown product Kristofer Darabos, who has ERSTE Liga experience round out the defensive unit for the team. If there are any injuries or suspension DEAC will need to reach down to their U20 team for players.
With hockey being back in town DEAC brought back a number of former players who have a scoring touch. Norbert Hári, Attila Németh and Péter T. Vincze are three experienced Hungarian players who are expected to score goals. Dávid Molnár came back home as well and should have a big season as well. Arnold Silló was an excellent pick up for the team, with these six forwards DEAC already has two solid lines. On top of this they also have two imports, Jakub Izacky and Domnik Novotny who played for Musial in Dunaújváros last season. The fourth line for the team will be made up of young players such as Zoltán Erdei who goes back to his home time after spending the last couple of seasons in Fehérvár. Vladislav Kuleshov and Barna Salló and Artyom Szokolov are three young players who will being coming up from the Debrecen youth system.
If DEAC does not have many injuries they will have a team that will be fighting to finish in the top five after the regular season and have the potential to be a team that makes it to the semifinals. Scoring and goaltending should not be an issue for the team, however if the injury bug does catch up to them they will might be in trouble.
Dávid Musial, head coach: Everything is new here in Debrecen, we have new coaches and new management. Every day we are working on getting better and we hope everything will be ready for the start of the season. We have a good goalie in Zoltán Hetényi and we have seven young players playing with the team. We are trying to develop them as they play with the older players, they will learn from the imports and pick up experience during the season. We need to give our best every game and we hope to make the playoffs, after that anything can happen.
Players added: Zoltán Hetényi (Knoxville, SPHL), Arnold Antal, Zoltán Erdei (Fehérvár), Jiri Behal (Hovy Jicin, CZE3), Bronson Kovács, Dávid Molnár (MAC), Nico Vuorijarvi (Hunters, FIN3), Norbert Hári, Jakub Izacky, Dominik Novotny, Arnold Silló (Dunaújváros), Ákos Berta (DVTK), Attila Németh (Ferencváros), Péter T. Vincze (HK Budapest), Péter Hetéyni (out of hockey)
