On Friday, The Steelers have their battle in Trenčín, while on Sunday, players from Nitra arrive in Košice. That's the following weekend's program of our hockey players. And as the table suggests, these will be very interesting matches, concerning precious points in the battle over top positions of the Tipsport League standings. 

The Steelers will travel to Trenčín, to play against hosting Dukla, which overcame the players from Poprad in Tuesday's match and repaid them their loss from January.  Forward Marek Hecl and the defense man Matúš Holenda scored in the match. Finally, the trio - defense man Patrik Báčik and forwards Boris Sádecký and Marek Hecl, who performed in the jersey of Slovan Braslava during the season, came to play for Dukla. Thanks to the victory over HK Poprad, the players of Dukla remained among the top 4 teams in the League, with its 84 points, which is only 5 points less than the leading Banská Bystrica.

Our Friday opponent occupies the 6th place in the power play goals percentage, as they managed to score during a man advantage 30 times from overall 175 cases (17,14 %). On the other hand, Dukla is the best in the league, when it comes to defense plays. Despite being shorthanded 174-times, they conceded only 24 power play goals, which can be expressed as 86,21 % rate of success.

The team from Trenčín found its leader in Peter Ölvecký. 32-years-old forward, who will soon represent the Slovak republic in the Winter Olympic Games in Pyeongchang, scored 14 gold in 40 matches and assisted to19 goals. An experienced forward Branko Radivojevič is short of only 1 point to match his score. Former successful representative overcame the opponents' goalie 12 times and helped out his teammates by 20 assists. Defense leader is the experienced veteran Tomáš Starosta, who was also nominated for the coming Winter Olympic Games. The native from Trenčín played in 40 matches in this season, in which his balance is 5+14. Excellent show was performed by the goalie Michal Valent. He played in 37 matches in this season, he led his team to victory in 25 of them. He managed to keep his clean sheet in 6 matches. The rate of success shown by his name is 93,38 %, what places him to the 2nd rank in the goalie statistics. His colleague Tomáš Hiadlovský is not doing bad as well. His rate of success in 10 matches is 92,74 % and he even kept his clean sheet in the 2 of them.

We will play again Dukla Trenčín for the 5th time in this season. We succeeded for 3 times in our previous duels, and the opponent overcame us only once. We weren't strong enough to defeat them only in our 1st mutual match in Trenčín, when we lost 1:3. On our home ice, we won both battles with results 5:1 and 4:2, and after the second match in Trenčín we enjoyed our victory 3:2.

Sunday brings along the smash of the 43rd round of our top hockey competition. HC Košice players will fight against players of HK Nitra in Steel Arena. Nitra players played the latest match against Zvolen, which was, however, out of their strength. Finally, Zvolen with its home-ice advantage won against Nitra 3:2 after overtime. Wearing the jersey of our Sunday opponent, Henrich Ručkay and Marek Slovák scored in the match. After Tuesday, HK Nitra occupies the 2nd position in the Tipsport League standings with its 87 points and it needs only 2 points to match the Rams from Banská Bystrica.

Nitra has a similar rate of power plays as Košice. In 179 power plays, the players from Nitra scored 35 goals, which can be demonstrated by19,55 % success rate. However, they are not so good when shorthanded – they conceded 33 goals from overall 186 cases of being shorthanded. This places them to the 8th rant in this statistics with success rate 82,26 %.

The top position of Nitra ranking belongs obviously to Michal Krištof, another one from the Olympians. 24-years-old center is credited with 15 goals and 35 assists, what places him together with 50 Canadian points to the 1st place in the ranking. His colleague from the 1st forward formation of Nitra, and also a representative on the 2018 Winter Olympic Games, Matej Paulovič is the best striker of the team as he scored 25 goals in 44 matches in the Tipsport League and assisted to 17 other. The best defense man is the team captain Branislav Mezei. His balance in 40 matches that he played in is 4+16. There are 3 goalies who support their teammates from Nitra– Nathan Lawson, Marek Laco and Frederik Foltán. In the 19 top Slovak hockey competition matches, Lawson has retained his success rate 91,90 %. Marek Laco got chance to prove himself in 11 matches and achieved success rate 91,63 %. The youngest of this trio has performed also in Nové Zámky and therefore, he has played in 17 matches. He managed to bring 8 of them to victory in cooperation with other teammates and his success rate is 91,50 %.

The balance of mutual matches between Košice and Nitra is equal. In 4 duels, both of them were able to use the home-ice advantage to win. The Steelers won the battle over Nitra on the home ice 4:2 and 7:2, but in Nitra they they lost 1:4 and 3:4 after overtime.

Let's support our guys in a demanding double match! They will need your help on Friday, as well as on Sunday on the home-ice! Let's encourage them to gain the important points, they will definitely need in a battle over a good place after the regular season. The match of Dukla Trenčín and HC Košice begins on Friday at 18:00, the Sunday match against Nitra at 16:00. HIT IT KOŠICE!

Formations from previous Tuesday round of the Tipsport League:

HC Košice: Habal - Kessel, Dudáš, Šedivý, Ovčačík, Michalčin, Pulli, Koch - Miklík, Pacan, Nagy - Kafka, Hovorka, Šoltés - Spilar, Suja, Jenčík - Hričina, Boltun, Vrábeľ - Petráš

HK Dukla Trenčín: Valent – Starosta, Bačík Cebák, Frühauf, Bohunický, Holenda, Romančík – Bezúch, Ölvecký, Sojčík – Varga, Sádecký, Hossa- Mikula, Dlouhý, Hecl – D. Hudec, J. Pardavý ml., J. Švec – Deveaux

HK Nitra: Lawson - Rýgl, Mezei, Ordzovenský, Milam, Miroslav Pupák, M. Versteeg, Korím – Paulovič, Krištof, H. Ručkay - Lantoši, Marek Slovák, Blackwater - Macík, J. Ručkay, Kovacs – Csányi, Šiška, Rzavský