Season 5 profile: Geneva Generals

GM: Andy Rolling (4th GM in team’s history)

Coach: Darryl Sutter (replaced Joel Quenneville after Season 3)

Last season: 18th overall

Ins and Outs (Season 4 to Season 5)

Out: Chris Kunitz (trade), Jiri Hudler (free agent), Matt Greene (waivers), Steve Ott (free agent), Adam McQuaid (free agent), John Mitchell (free agent), Brad Stuart (retired)

In: Matt Read (free agent), Erik Cole (free agent), Nikita Nikitin (free agent), Nicklas Grossman (free agent), Eric Brewer (free agent), Wojtek Wolski (free agent), Sergei Mozyakin (draft), Bud Holloway (draft), Andreas Johnson (draft), Christian Marti (draft)

In Place (Key players signed past Season 5)

Ondrej Pavelec, G; Frederik Andersen, G; Sergei Mozyakin, C: Valeri Nichushkin, RW; Dennis Wideman, D

Three Questions

1. How will trading away Kari Lethonen affect the Generals? General Manager Andy Rolling’s predecessor in the initial draft went for it all in Season 1, building a team designed to win the Cup. He succeeded. But seasons 2 and on were not part of the plan, so a decline was expected. Now Rolling has to try to get the team going upward again as older parts fall off the machine. He sacrificed Kari Lehtonen this off-season for three parts including Ondrej Pavelec. That gives the Generals two under-30 goalies who are capable of starting in the EURO League today and for the next 5-7 years. Pavelec, 27, and Frederik Anderssen, 25, will split duties unless one gets and stays hot.

2. What is the team’s strength? Depth. While the aforementioned goalies are the highest-rated players on the team, the forwards and defensemen are solid. Coach Darryl Sutter has a seemingly interchangeable set of forwards, 11 of them with OV ratings between 74 and 80. Youngster Valeri Nichushkin is the only starting forward below the 74 OV mark, but he could be there by mid-season. Line matching against Geneva will be pointless. On defense, the Generals have similar depth. They have experience throughout the pairings and four players who will contribute to the offense in Dennis Wideman, Ilya Nikulin, Karel Rachunek and Nikita Nikitin. Nicklas Grossman will see a lot of penalty killing time and Jordan Leopold and the newest general, Eric Brewer, add a lot of experience.

3. How about this kid they picked up from Russia? With the second pick in the draft, Rolling took Sergei Mozyakin from Russia. The 22-year-old center is good in all areas, will be a legitimate superstar in the league, and he has a shot at the rookie of the year award this season if he gets quality ice time. That’s a medium to big “if.” As stated, the team has competition at every position. As a center, Mozyakin will be fighting for ice time with David Desharnais, Darren Helm and Mike Fisher this year. None of the four has a clear-cut advantage over the other three. Once Mozyakin gains experience, he will be the number one guy for sure, but that role is anyone’s right now.

History

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

Season 4 18 80 15.5 83.4 26.29 32.51 2.72 3.28 9.46

Season 3 17 82 17.1 83.8 29.01 30.28 3.15 3.38 8.83

Season 2 10 96 18.9 82.8 31.94 29.30 3.39 2.99 10.68

Season 1 1 123 21.4 83.6 32.16 27.72 3.99 2.77 8.85

Top Draft picks

Season 1: Kari Lehtonen, G, current age 32. Games played: 264; Save Pct. 90.2

Season 2: none

Season 3: none

Season 4: Frederik Andersen, G, age 25. GP: 34; save pct. 91.2

Season 5: Sergei Mozyakin, C, age 22.

Trade History

Season 1 (picks without years listed are from initial draft)

Traded Round 15 pick (used to draft Ryan Ellis) , Round 25 pick (Ben Lovejoy) and 2013 Round 1 pick (Jason Krog) to Paris for Dennis Wideman

Traded Round 8 pick (Olli Jokinen), Round 10 pick (Petr Sykora) and 2013 Round 2 pick (Ryan Murray) to Dublin for Round 7 pick (Chris Kunitz), Round 22 pick (Bryan Allen) and $250,000

Traded Round 17 pick (Tomas Kopecky) and 2014 Round 1 pick (Michael Stone) to Bratislava for Round 8 pick (David Desharnais) and Round 19 pick (Greg Zanon)

Traded Round 13 pick (Marcus Kruger) and Round 14 pick (Mark Scheifele) to Athens for Round 9 pick (Nick Foligno)

Traded Alex Chiasson to Minsk for Vernon Fiddler and $1 million

Traded Brian Dumoulin to Minsk for Round 21 pick (Raffi Torres)

Traded Matt D’Agostino, 2014 Round 2 pick (Andrei Loktionov) and $250,000 to Oslo for Justin Williams

Traded 2013 Round 3 pick (Scott Glennie), 2014 Round 3 pick (Tommy Wingels) and $1.5 million to Bern for Nicklas Backstrom (goalie)

Season 2

Traded Justin Williams, Ryan Malone and Jeff Woywitka to Prague for Thomas Vanek and Mike Weaver

* seem to missing one trade in this period

Season 3

Traded Michael Del Zotto to Minsk for Valeri Nichushkin, Ilya Nikulin and Sergei Kostitsyn

Season 4

Traded Kari Lehtonen to Edinburgh for Ondrej Pavelec, 2016 Round 1 pick (later traded) and 2017 Round 2 pick