GM: Roland Lavoie (only GM in team’s history)

Coach: Dan Bylsma

Last season: 17th overall

Ins and Outs (Season 4 to Season 5)

Out: Jordan Staal (trade), Andrew Cogliano (trade), Marko Dano (trade), Marcel Goc (free agent)

In:  Patrik Berglund (trade), Nick Leddy, (trade), Andrej Meszaros (trade), Lee Stempniak (free agent), Loic Lamperier (draft), Tomas Nosek (draft), Reto Suri (draft), Alex Lintuniemi (draft), Yasin Ehliz (free agent), Alex Trivellato (free agent), Benedikt Bruckner (free agent), Vojtech Nemec (free agent), Benjamin Conz (free agent), Anton Lazarev (free agent)

In Place (Key players signed past Season 5)

Erik Karlsson, D; Gabriel Landeskog, LW; Derek Stepan, C; Robin Lehner, G; Nick Leddy, D

 

 

 

Three Questions

1. Who is the star of Royals team? It’s a shared position. In the near future, all-star goalie Robin Lehner will be all the rage, but for now, the star of the team is a few people. Madrid didn’t have a player in the top 75 scorers in the league last year. Center Derek Stepan and left wing Gabriel Landeskog were the team’s leading scorers with 59 points each and defenseman Erik Karlsson had 58. What was missing from the equation was a right wing to chip in with points. Veterans Olli Jokinen, R.J. Umberger and Brian Gionta weren’t the answer last year. Chris Stewart was a good mid-season acquisition and he can really help a powerplay. Madrid added Paris’ Lee Stempniak through free agency and he may even be given an audition with Stepan and Landeskog. But it’s not all about offense and the Royals have an excellent checking line of Sean Couturier, Dan Winnick and Umberger that may not get the publicity it will deserve.

2. Which Karlsson will we see? Karlsson still seems to be doing one of those odd year/even year things. But not to such a degree as he did the first three seasons. His plus-minus rating dropped in Season 4 to -31, which is the exact same rating he had in Season 2. But the rest of his game didn’t drop drastically from Season 3, which was his best year to date. His shot blocking and hitting actually improved markedly. One thing you can expect from Karlsson is the unexpected. You roll the dice when you send him out onto the ice. The only thing that is consistent with him is his ice time. In each of the four seasons so far, he has averaged 29 minutes per game. That makes him the all-time league leader in ice time and he’s only missed 2 games through 4 seasons.

3. Will they make the playoffs? The Royals barely snuck into the playoffs in Season 4, grabbing the 8th place spot in the Southern Conference before bowing out in five games to powerful Paris. Through trades since then, Madrid gave up Jordan Staal but they gained Andrej Meszaros, Patrik Berglund and Nick Leddy, and they got Lee Stempniak through free agency. They also have Alex Tanguay and Chris Stewart specializing in powerplays. Many Southern Conference teams are better than they were a few months ago, but so is Madrid. Prague faded at the end last season, but they shouldn’t this year. The conference looks to be a real battle all year long, all along the standings. Madrid is a good team; don’t underestimate them. But for them, every point will matter this season … starting with Game 1.

History

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

Season 4              17             81         19.5         83.6       30.77      32.00        2.99         3.40       10.79

Season 3              8               94          18.7        78.0        33.35     28.30        3.51         3.28       9.45

Season 2              17            83         17.4         83.9        31.72      28.74        3.15          3.33       9.76

Season 1              9              95          22.6        80.3        30.85       29.05        3.68        3.29        9.01

Top Draft picks

Season 1: Erik Karlsson, D, current age 25. Games played: 326; points: 227; -60

Season 2: Erik Ersberg, G, age 27. GP 52, Save Pct. 88.4

Season 3: Marko Dano, C, age 20

Season 4: Haydn Fleury, D, age 19

Season 5: Loic Lamperier, LW, age 20.

Trade History

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

Traded Max Pacioretty to Frankfurt for Round 7 pick (used to draft Slava Voynov),   Round 10 pick (later traded) (Trevor Daley) and 2013 Round 2 pick (Erik Ersberg)

Traded Dustin Brown, Round 10 pick (Trevor Daley) and Round 11 pick (Chris Kreider) to Milan for Gabriel Landeskog

Traded Sammi Pahlsson to Bern for Round 20 pick (Brandon Prust) and Round 22 pick (Mark Visentin)

Traded Michal Neuvirth, Nick Johnson and 2013 Round 1 pick (Martin Ruzicka) to Athens for Tomas Vokoun

Traded Henrik Sedin to Milan for Jordan Stall, Chris Kreider and 2013 Round 2 pick (Jonas Brodin)

Traded 2013 Round 2 pick (Eliezer Sherbatov) to Milan for Biran Rolston

Season 2

Traded Slava Voynov, 2014 Round 2 pick (traded later) (Robert Hagg), Round 1 pick (traded later) (Sean Monhan) to Berlin for R. J. Umberger, Brayden Coburn, Mikhail Grigorenko and a second-round pick (traded later) (Josh Morrissey?)

Traded Erik Ersberg to Berlin for Brian Campbell and 2014 Round 3 pick (Marko Dano)

Traded Saku Koivu to Prague for Chad Larose and 2015 Round 2 pick (Jake Virtanen)

* seem to be missing one trade that probably occurred in here somewhere

Season 3

Traded Jeff Carter, Ryan Johansen and 2015 Round 1 pick (Nikita Kucherov) to Stockholm for Rick Nash and 2015 Round 2 pick (Haydn Fleury)

Season 4

Traded Tomas Vokoun and 2015 Round 2 pick (Nikita Scherbak) to Stockholm for Jonas Hiller

Traded Rick Nash, Fedor Tyutin, Braydon Coburn and Patrick O’Sullivan to Edinburgh for Derek Stepan, Chris Stewart, Dan Winnick and Francois Beauchemin

Season 5

Traded Marko Dano and 2017 Round 2 pick to Copenhagen for Andrej Meszaros

Traded Jordan Staal to Minsk for Patrik Berglund and Nick Leddy

Traded Andrew Cogliano to Copenhagen for 2016 Round 2 pick (Reto Suri)