Hungary edged out France 4-2 in a back-and-forth battle in what was the first Women's World Championship meeting between the countries since 2018 and the first time they've met in a top division tournament. While this was Hungary’s first game of the tournament, France had played Finland just about 30 hours earlier, suffering a tough 14-1 loss.

In 2018, France beat Hungary 2-1 in the Division I Group A tournament on home ice, a win that helped the French win gold and earn promotion to the top division. This time around, Hungary took the lead first and maintained it throughout the remainder of the game. Five minutes in, defender Eniko Toth sent Alexandra Huszak on a breakaway with an impressive pass up centre ice, and despite French goaltender Caroline Lambert stopping her initial attempt, Huszak battled for the puck relentlessly, eventually sending it trickling past Lambert. The large contingent of Hungarian fans in the CAA Centre erupted with Huszak's goal.



"The Hungarian fans are some of the most fantastic fans in the world," said Huszak. "[When] we were going on the ice we were hearing how they cheer for us and seriously I want to say thank you to them because it means a lot to us. We were hearing them the whole time, when we left the locker room, when we got to the ice."

"Hungarian fans are unbelievable," said Hungary head coach Pat Cortina. "When the national anthem was played, they were getting pretty emotional. They’re a really proud people, and they helped the girls tonight for sure."

There were chances both ways throughout the first period, but it was Hungary who was able to successfully convert their chances into goals. Peppering Lambert with shots on the power play, Hungary extended their lead with a goal from Regina Metzler.

France came out flying at the start of the second period, but couldn’t capitalize on a long 4-on-3 opportunity, with Hungarian goalie Aniko Nemeth continuing to deny their scoring attempts. It seemed like no goals would be scored in the second period until Huszak jumped on a rebound and snuck the puck in on her backhand with less than a minute left before the intermission, her second of the night.

"We had training camps after the World Championship of course, but end of March, everyone just ended their club team championships so we didn't really have time to come together and start a preparation camp," Huszak said of the lead-up to Women's Worlds. "When we came to Toronto, we had a four day training camp together, so it wasn't too much. We didn't really have time together. But during the year we had camps and just tried to build us up and really prepare to show the Hungarian mentality."

With a three goal deficit going into the third, France had a lot of work to do, but started to close the gap with a goal from Estelle Duvin. Thrilling back-and-forth play continued, with France capitalizing on a tripping penalty to Kinga Jokai-Szilagy, inching closer to a tied game with a rocket one-timer goal from Athena Locatelli on the blue line.

"We just said that we know we can do it," French captain Lore Baudrit said of the message in the dressing room before the third period. "We kept pushing all the game. Of course our start didn't help us, but we just pushed, and pushed and we said, if we can get one goal, it will be coming, and it happened. It's tough to say, but we created more chances. This loss is tough, very tough." 

The French momentum was lost when a five minute major was assessed to Clara Rozier for an illegal hit with eight minutes remaining in the game, giving Hungary an opportunity to achieve a more comfortable lead. Parked by Lambert's left post, Reka Dabasi one-timed a pass from Francisca Kiss-Simon into the net, with Kiss-Simon collecting her third assist of the night.

"I thought we handled the 3-2 situation really well," said Cortina. "We started play with the puck more, drew that one important penalty. We worked hard, even though we didn't always work smart, but it's a nice way to start. Every game is going to be a difficult game for us, and we have to play 60 minutes. That's the biggest lesson for us tonight."

France managed to kill the remainder of the penalty, then pulled Lambert for the extra attacker with just under two minutes to go, but it was Hungary that came away with the three points.

"We tried to show our best, but we're not satisfied with this win, we're going to do more," said Huszak. "We're going to celebrate now for a couple hours and then we'll just totally forget this whole night. Then the next step is preparing for the next game. That's our team mentality, to build up slowly, step by step and hopefully it's going to turn out really well."