GM: Chad Legge (fifth GM in team’s history)

Coach: Craig Berube

Last season: 21st overall, out of the playoffs

Ins and Outs (Season 4 to Season 5)

Out: Mark Giordano (trade); Zenon Konopka (retired), Anton Babchuk (free agent), Milan Hejduk (free agent), Cal O’Reilly (free agent), Dana Tyrell (free agent), Nate Guenin (free agent), Cody McCormick (free agent), Andrew Shaw (waivers)

In: Tomas Fleischmann (free agent), Braydon Coburn (waivers), Aleksey Morozov (waivers), Travis Zajac (waivers), Filip Forsberg, Nikita Zadorov, Fyodor Malykhin (draft), R. McKeown (draft), Felix Bruckmann (draft), Daniel Pietta (draft)

In Place (Key players signed past Season 5)

Cory Schneider, G; Talgat Zhailauov, C; Dave Bolland, C; Henrik Sedin, C; Filip Forsberg, LW, Radko Gudas, D

Three Questions

1. Is it me, or are they in a bad mood? Neither, really. The Dire Wolf are by nature a bunch of really mean dudes. They didn’t lead the league in penalty minutes last season, but it’s difficult to understand why they didn’t. Radko Gudas, who with the thick beard, looks like he could be the son of Brutus (Bluto) from the old Popeye cartoon, racked up 101 minutes in 53 games last season to lead the team. He’s in a large group of Wolves who tend to keep the referees’ whistles in tune. Matt Cooke, Steve Downey, Andrew Shaw, Charlie Coyle, Michael Sauer, Ryan Wilson,  (inhale), Eric Gryba, Mark Giordano … that’s a pile of penalty minutes and toughness right there. You don’t even want to mess with their coach, Craig Berube, who is seventh all-time in NHL penalty minutes. Munich released two farm thugs, Zenon Kenopka and Cody McCormick, so maybe there is a change in philosophy under way. Such a change might be worth a try. It’s tough to get a high shots per game average when you’re shorthanded for nearly a quarter of every game. (Editor’s note: Shaw was later waived and claimed by Oslo).

2. Where are they strongest? Munich didn’t have any top-50 scorers last season, but they are strong at center, where captain Henrik Sedin plays on the top line. Talgat Zhailauov, a 25-year-old from Kazakhstan, elevated his game last year and was tops on the team in plus-minus (+21) and finished as the second-leading scorer on the team behind Sedin. That earned him a promotion to the second line ahead of another good center, David Bolland. Sedin’s linemates to start the season look to be fellow Swede Filip Forsberg, a skillful rookie, and another newcomer, free agent Tomas Fleischmann. Berube seems to have the future in mind because he currently has rookies Forsberg and Fyodor Malykhin in the assistant captain slots. On Saturday, the eve of the start of the season, General Manager Chad Legge astutely improved the team by claiming Aleksey Morozov and Braydon Coburn off waivers. Coburn instantly joins the top defense pairing with Mark Giordano, at the expense of either Michael Sauer or Eric Gryba. (Editor’s note: Giordano was traded the day before the season started.)

3. They traded Quick, so is there a huge problem in goal? Legge took over after his predecessor traded away the league’s top goalie, Jonathan Quick. Coming to Germany in the deal were Forsberg and goalie Cory Schneider, who is younger than Quick and certainly no slouch himself. Last year, he had a commendable 3.02 goals against average and a save percentage of 90.7, which was 8th best in the league and not far under his career best average of 91.0 in Season 1.  Backup Robert Kristan was not  bad, but certainly not as good as Schneider, and  during the last third of the Season 4, in the pre-Legge days, he was played more often than Schneider was.

History

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

Season 4             21        70           17.0       83.0       26.46    34.98     2.96     3.51             12.99

Season 3              5         103          18.4       85.6       30.66    31.72    3.40     2.74              12.24

Season 2              4         104          21.4       82.9      29.95     30.85     3.22        2.63                11.82

Season 1              5         104         19.0        84.0        32.62     28.73    3.50        2.88               9.41

Top Draft picks

Season 1: Jonathan Quick, G, current age 29. Games played: 263; Save Pct 91.6

Season 2: Talgat Zhailauov, C, age 25. GP 238, Pts 114, +53

Season 3: Andrew Shaw, RW, age 23. GP 160, Pts 38, +11

Season 4: Radko Gudas, G, age 24. GP 53, Pts 14, +3

Season 5: Fyodor Malykhin, LW, age 21.

Trade History

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

Traded Round 8 pick (used to draft Tomas Fleischmann), Round 10 pick (James Wisniewski), and Round 16 pick (Nikita Nikitin) to Dublin for Round 9 pick (used to draft Joe Corvo), Round 11 pick (Milan Hejduk) Round 13 pick (Josh Bailey) and $10,000

Season 2

Traded Tomas Zaborsky and Brooks Laich to Copenhagen for Dany Heatley and David Bolland

Traded Anton Babchuk to Stockholm for Magnus Johansson

Season 4

Traded 2015 Round 3 pick (David Pastrnak) to Berlin for Ryan Wilson

Traded Dion Phaneuf to Copenhagen for Mark Giordano, Nikita Zadorov and Charlie Coyle

Season 5

Traded Jonathan Quick to Belfast for Cory Schneider and Filip Forsberg

Traded Mark Giordano to Minsk for two 2017 Round 3 picks

Transactions after the start of Season 5:

Lost Steve Downey (waivers)

Signed Francois Beauchemin (free agent)

Signed Denis Gribko (free agent)