GM: Chris Legge  (second GM in team’s history)

Coach Guy Boucher

Last season: 11th overall

Ins and Outs  (Season 3 to Season 4)

Out: Eric Gelinas (trade), Morgan Rielly (trade)

In: Ryan Suter (trade)

In Place (Key players signed past Season 4)

Zach Parise, LW; Eric Staal, C; Dan Girardi, D, Ryan Suter, D; Carl Hagelin, LW

Three Questions

1. Do big names equal playoff payoff? The way General manager Chris Legge has constructed his team since taking over as the second GM is noteworthy. Step 1: Collect assets like first-round draft picks and trade them for a super star. Step 2: Keep doing it. That philosophy has led to this: Antti Niemi in goal, Dan Girardi and Ryan Suter on defense, and Eric Staal centering Zach Parise and Jordan Eberle with Martin St. Louis prowling on the second line. That’s over $38 million worth of top-notch talent. It came at the expense of the Devils’ far-off future, unless they can recoup some of the 8 draft picks (4 were round-one picks), three prospects and three established players they traded to collect 4 of the starting six and St. Louis. Eberle and Girardi were already on the team before the trading started, having been the team’s second- and fourth-round selections, respectively, in the initial EURO draft.  The Gothenburg starting six accounted for 138 goals last season.

2. With so much up top, will depth be a problem? A prolonged injury to one of the top players will hurt, for sure. But when they are a healthy squad, Gothenburg looks playoff bound. John Carlson and Erik Johnson play second fiddle to Suter and Girardi. Pretty good fiddles. And up front, the Devils could rain hell upon their foes with the aforementioned Staal/Parise/Eberle line followed by St. Louis/Adam Henrique/Carl Hagelin and then a line of speed merchant Petr Vrana/Cal Clutterbuck/Chris Kelly. Even their fourth liners can play. If there are chinks in the armor, they are Mark Fraser at No. 6 D and young Beau Bennett on the fourth line. Legge is over the salary cap, so he would probably have to do more than pluck someone off the waiver wire to improve those positions.

3. How do their stats stack up? Special teams were a strength of Gothenburg’s last season. They put together the league’s 7th best power play unit and 10th best penalty killing unit. And they showed a lot of discipline; only 7 teams had fewer penalty minutes. Overall, however, they ended up average to below average in statistics dealing with shots and goals for and against. Coach Guy Boucher is known to be inventive and capricious at times, but his plan changes shouldn’t rock the boat too much with  Staal, Parise and St. Louis making up a good leadership bloc for the Devils.

History

Season                 Place        PTS        PP %      PK %      SPG       SAPG     GPG     GAPG    PIM

Season 3              11             91            18.9      83.4       28.96     30.91     3.41      3.46     10.98

Season 2              15            86            17.4      84.6      30.12     30.93     3.44      3.50     11.02

Season 1              14             88           17.4       86.6      30.74     28.65     3.26     3.13      7.95

Top Draft picks

Season 1: Adam Henrique, C, current age 24. Games played: 233; points: 211; -76

Season 2: Petr Vrana, LW, age 23. GP 155, Pts 64; +18

Season 3: Beau Bennett, RW, age 22.  GP 38, Pts 10; +1

Season 4: none

Trade History

Season 2

Traded Sam Gagner, 2014 Round 1 pick (traded later) (used to draft Jonathan Drouin) and 2015 Round 2 pick (David Savard) to Stockholm for Eric Staal

* missing one trade, probably in this period.

Season 3

Traded Milan Lucic, 2016 Round 1 pick and 2017 Round 1 pick to Minsk for Zach Parise

Traded Devante Smith-Pelly, Ales Hemsky and 2016 Round 2 pick to St. Petersburg for Martin St. Louis

Traded 2015 Round 1 pick (Dan Dekeyser) and 2015 Round 3 pick (Alex Tuch) to Milan for Antti Niemi

Season 4

Traded Morgan Rielly, Eric Gelinas and 2017 Round 2 pick to Oslo for Ryan Suter