Romani ice hockey player Dominik Lakatoš finally back on the Czech national team
Dominik Lakatoš has finally been nominated to the Czech national ice hockey team and trainer Kari Jalonen is counting on him for the games in Sweden; he was not involved in its last two performances, November's Karjala tour and the December Swiss Games. The striker from HC Vítkovice is currently the fifth-highest goal scorer in the Czech sport, but this is not his first time representing the national team.
Lakatoš debuted on the national team at the end of 2020 and scored a goal right away during his first match. “He really does play brilliantly. We decided to take him on and give him a lot of room. He’ll be in the starting lineup,” Jalonen told Czech Television.
Jalonen’s original plan had been to bring a team that would be 25 and under to the third leg of the Euro Hockey Tour, but he has now nominated experienced players instead who hadn’t yet been available this season. “We had 60 players on the team this season, and we have quite a good picture of which players from Europe are able to make it at the international level,” he told Czech Television.
“There are 16 players on this team who haven’t yet played for the national side this season,” the trainer said. Lakatoš played for Liberec until 2020, when he moved to Vítkovice.
He then played 15 matches, not very successfully, with the Finnish club SaiPa and returned to Vítkovice in November 2021, where he began to succeed again. Partially of Romani origin, he was an Extraliga champ in 2015 and a double runner-up in 2017 and 2019.
In 2016 he played for the Czech team at the junior championship, and that same year he also became the best rookie in the Extraliga, becoming its most productive junior the following year. He was also selected by the New York Rangers in the sixth round, 157th overall, of the 2017 NHL Entry Draft.
