Hungarian Team Includes 16-Year-Old Eligible For 2026 NHL Draft
There are eight professional hockey teams in Hungary. One, Fehérvár AV19, competes in the Austrian-based ICEHL and this past season was in the Champions Hockey League. Fehérvár supplies seven players to this Hungarian team. The other seven teams compete in the lower-level Erste Liga, which also includes three Romanian-based clubs. Eight players on the Hungarian team come from that league.
There is no NHL experience on the roster and one player, goaltender Ádám Vay, played two AHL games for the Iowa Wild in 2017-18. The 31-year-old netminder currently plays for Poprad in the Slovak Extraliga.
The rest of the team includes a mix of players based in various countries, including Sweden, Switzerland, Great Britain, two for the Iowa Heartlanders in the ECHL and, interestingly, three in Finland.
Vilmos Galló and Bence Horváth, who play for KooKoo and Jukurit, respectively, in the Finnish Liiga, are two of the team's better offensive players. A third Finnish-based player, 16-year-old Domán Szongoth, who plays for KooKoo's top junior team, made his World Championship debut on Saturday against Germany.
In an interview at the Olympic qualifiers in August, where he scored a goal for Hungary, Szongoth compared himself to Aleksander Barkov and said that he thinks every day about the 2026 NHL Entry Draft, which is when he'll be eligible. The last Hungarian to be drafted by an NHL team was János Vas by the Dallas Stars in 2002.
16-year-old Domán Szongoth of Hungary In the first game of the 2024 Men's Final Olympic Qualifying Group D on Thursday, Hungary dressed 16-year-old Domán Szongoth.
Goaltenders: Bence Bálizs (Sarpsborg, NOR), Dominik Horváth (Fehérvár, ICEHL/HUN), Ádám Vay (Poprad, SVK).
Forwards: Zsombor Garát (Nottingham Panthers, EIHL), Zétény Hadobás (Iowa Heartlanders, ECHL), Milán Horváth, Bence Szabó (both Budapest Akadémia, Erste Liga/HUN), Henrik Nilsson (Kalmar HC, SWE), Tamás Ortenszky (Winterthur, SUI), Šimon Szathmáry (Jegesmedvék, Erste Liga/HUN), Gábor Tornyai (UTE, Erste Liga/HUN).
Forwards: Vilmos Galló (KooKoo, FIN), Domán Szongoth (KooKoo Jr, FIN), Kristóf Németh, János Hári, Ákos Mihály, Csanád Erdély, Gergő Ambrus, István Terbócs (all Fehérvár, ICEHL/HUN), Bence Horváth (Jukurit, FIN), Ferenc Laskawy (Erste Liga/HUN), András Mihalik (DEAC, Erste Liga/HUN), Krisztián Nagy (Budapest Akadémia, Erste Liga/HUN), Kristóf Papp (Iowa Heartlanders, ECHL), Péter Vincze (Gyergyói, Erste Liga/ROU).
Can This Roster Break USA's World Championship Semifinal Curse? Can the team that USA Hockey has assembled to represent the country at this year's IIHF World Championship reach the final? Previous teams have appeared good enough on paper.
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