Olympic Qual­i­fying: Austria come from behind to beat Hungary in a shootout!

"It is certainly a huge relief, but it is still not the result we want. We did not show our game in the first period and a half. I was not happy with our performance there, including my own. We really need to take another step forward. We want to be a better nation than Hungary, an established top-division nation, so we simply have to deliver more. But we turned the game around, showed character and played our hockey, and I am very happy with that," reflected David Reinbacher on the hard-fought victory over Hungary.

Austria conceded three goals in the first period, two of which could certainly be described as dubious. In particular, the 0:2, when Thomas Höneckl saved the initial shot but then lost sight of the puck after it came off the boards behind him, allowing Kristof Papp to simply push it over the line. Head Coach Roger Bader brought on Florian Vorauer from the second period onwards, and he did not concede in his 40 minutes plus overtime. 

Generally, the Austrians came out of the dressing room more aggressively and at times pinned Hungary back in their defensive zone. A power play towards the end of the second period also brought the deserved first goal. Lukas Haudum let fly and the puck trickled over the line. The Austrians dominated the third period and, thanks to a double from Dominic Zwerger, drew level and forced overtime. 

After it remained scoreless, the shootout had to decide the outcome, and Austria once again had two reliable shooters in Lukas Haudum and Dominic Zwerger. The reward: the Austrian national anthem at the end of a strong Olympic qualifying campaign.

Head Coach Roger Bader was also satisfied with the performances shown: "We had one poor period in this tournament. That was the first period against Hungary. I made that very clear to the team in the dressing room. Nevertheless, it was not a 0:3 period; they also scored some bizarre goals. The overall assessment is positive. We produced an absolutely top performance against Slovakia, comparable to the game against Finland at the World Championship. Only the result was not right. We dominated Kazakhstan at times. We should have won that game. The fact that we were able to overturn a 0:3 deficit and ultimately win deservedly says a lot about this team's character and was also an important experience."

Hosts Slovakia won the evening game against Kazakhstan 3:1 and qualified for the 2026 Olympic Games in Milano/Cortina d'Ampezzo. 

2024 OLYMPIC MEN'S ICE HOCKEY FINAL QUALIFICATION, GROUP D

Austria vs. Hungary 4:3 n.P. (0:3,1:0,2:0,0:0,1:0)

Sun., 01 September 2024, 14:00, Bratislava, Ondrej Nepela Arena, 783

Austria scorers: Lukas Haudum (39th/PP1), Dominic Zwerger (52th, 60th) – Dominic Zwerger and Lukas Haudum score in the shootout
Hungary scorers: Vilmos Galló (5th), Kristóf Papp (12th), Bence Szabó (19th)

Austria lined up with:

Goaltenders: 29 Höneckl Thomas; 1 Vorauer, Florian (backup) from 21.

Line 1: 32 Wolf Bernd - 8 Nickl Thimo;  9 Wukovits Ali - 7 Nissner Benjamin - 15 Thaler Lucas

Line 2: 19 Heinrich Dominique - 4 Reinbacher David; 16 Zwerger Dominic - 10 Kasper Marco - 3 Schneider Peter

Line 3: 25 Unterweger Clemens - 12 Maier David; 21 Haudum Lukas - 18 Baumgartner Benjamin -  28 Huber Mario

Line 4: 26 Stapelfeldt Paul - 14 Zündel Kilian; 17 Ganahl Manuel - 13 Rohrer Vinzenz - 27 Huber Paul

Already played:

Kazakhstan vs. Austria 2:1 (1:0,0:0,1:1)

Fri, 30 August 2024, 14:00, Bratislava, Ondrej Nepela Arena, 397
Kazakhstan goalscorers: Dmitri Breus (2nd minute), Tamirlan Gaitamirov (53rd minute)
Austria goalscorer: Raphael Herburger (43rd minute)

Slovakia vs. Austria 2:1 (0:0,2:1,0:0)
Thu, 29 August 2024, 18:00, Bratislava, Ondrej Nepela Arena, 8.670
Slovakia goalscorers: Martin Gernát (33rd minute), Miloš Kelemen (35th minute)
Austria goalscorer: Marco Kasper (40th minute/PP2) 

All information on the official IIHF website