SEASON 6 PROFILE: EDINBURGH CAPITALS

city edinburgh

GM: John Charles (3rd GM in team’s history)

Coach: Bob Hartley (replaced Randy Carlyle before Season 6, who replaced Lindy Ruff)

Last season: 14th overall, (lost to Belfast in Round 1)

Ins and Outs (Season 5 to Season 6)

Out: Rick Nash (free agent), Jay Bouwmeester (free agent), Jeff Schultz (free agent), Blake Comeau (free agent), Ryan Whitney (free agent)

In: Carl Soderberg (free agent), Rickard Wallin (free agent), Jason Demers (free agent), Mike Hoffman (draft), Aleksey Morozov (waivers), Alex Killorn (waivers)

In Place (Key players signed past Season 6)

Jamie Benn, LW; Claude Giroux, C; Kari Lehtonen, G; Gurkan Cetinkaya, D, Luke Schenn, D

Three Questions

1. Is this the Caps’ year ? Probably not. There is some great competition in the league and to get to the Finals, Edinburgh would have to upset the likes of Belfast and Minsk. But the Capitals have some good pieces in place who are still a couple of years away from their peaks. Up front, the top forward lines are populated with players between the ages of 25 and 30. The defensemen are 24 to 28 except for 33-year-old Fedor Tyutin. We’ll get to the goalie position a little later. Claude Giroux and Jamie Benn are the main men in Edinburgh this year coming off good seasons. Giroux scored 93 points to place him 8th in the league in scoring, while Benn scored 82, putting him tied for 21st in the league. Their right wing from last year, Rick Nash, moved to London leaving prime lineup real estate just to the east of Giroux. Free agent Rickard Wallin and Olivier Roland, who came to the team in a Season 3 trade with Belfast, will be considered for the top line. The second line will be very good, with one of those two right wingers playing with Brandon Dubinsky at center and draft pick Mike Hoffman on the left side.

2. How do the Caps look when the other team has the puck? New Coach Bob Hartley is among the best coaches in the league at teaching penalty killing strategy and he has inherited an above average group of killers. That should be a bright spot for the Scots this season. Overall though, Edinburgh gave up more shots per game last season than in any season in their history. That has to change. Right now, the Caps have no all-star caliber defensemen, but at least three of them are budding stars in the league. Adam Larsson, 24, came in the trade that brought Roland into town and he will be good. Over-matched this year perhaps, but good. Gurkan Cetinkaya, 24, and Luke Schenn, 27, are excellent defensively, have spent their entire careers in Edinburgh, and they are only getting better.

3. What are their biggest problems? We see significant issues in two departments: leadership and accounting. Giroux is captain and Benn is one of the assistant captains. That’s fine, but the aforementioned Larsson is an assistant captain at age 24. Over in accounting, there is a huge problem. Due to cap compliance issues, the Caps have $12.3 million in goalies sitting on the farm club right now. Kari Lehtonen, 33, is one of the best in the game, but if he gets into the lineup right now, his $9 million salary will put Edinburgh over the cap. James Reimer fell behind 22-year-old Jakob Kovar on the depth chart and Edinburgh might eat his $3.33 million salary unless he moves to the pro team where another 22-year-old, Slovenian Luka Gracnar could see his first EURO action if the money squeeze continues.

History

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

Season 5 14 85 19.2 83.1 29.62 31.85 3.23 3.40 8.79

Season 4 5 107 20.3 82.4 32.22 29.05 3.77 3.02 9.98

Season 3 13 83 15.7 81.3 30.16 28.44 3.44 3.51 10.66

Season 2 12 93 17.8 82.3 30.05 27.26 3.51 3.43 12.13

Season 1 12 90 15.2 80.8 29.84 29.06 3.11 3.13 9.11

Top Draft picks

Season 1: Henrik Lundqvist, G, current age 33. Games played: 264; save pct. 91.6

Season 2: Gurkan Cetinkaya, D, age 23. GP 144, Pts 49, -8

Season 3: Casey Cizikas, C, age 23. GP 26, Points 7, -2

Season 4: Sam Reinhart, C, age 19.

Season 5: Marc Peninou, RW, age 22.

Season 6:

Trade History

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

Traded Round 3 pick (used to draft Daniel Sedin) and Round 5 pick (Ray Whitney) to Bern for Round 2 pick (Derek Stepan)

Traded Round 15 pick (Evgeny Kuznetsov) to Bern for Dan Winnick

Traded Nick Bjugstad to Minsk for Matt Hunwick, for Round 25 pick (Daniel Paille) and another Round 25 pick (Alexei Emelin)

Traded Round 21 pick (David Moss) to Bratislava for David Steckel

Traded 2013 Round 2 pick (Gerhard Unterluggauer) to Milan for Andrew Cogliano

Traded Artem Anisimov, Blake Wheeler and Marc-Eduoard Vlasic to St. Petersburg for James Neal, Andrei Kostitsyn and Karl Alzner

Traded Henrik Lundqvist to Helsinki for John Tavares, Ilya Bryzgalov, 2013 Round 2 pick (Jakub Kovar) and $5 million

Traded David Steckel and 2013 Round 3 pick (Jamie Oleksiak) to St. Petersburg for Kyle Wellwood

Season 2 – None

Season 3 – None

Traded James Neal and Oliver Ekman-Larsson to Belfast for Tony Martensson, Olivier Roland, Ondrej Pavelec and Adam Larsson

Traded Ondrej Pavelec, 2016 Round 1 pick (Simon Hjalmarsson), 2017 Round 2 pick to Geneva for Kari Lehtonen

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

Season 4

Traded John Tavares to Lisbon for Claude Giroux

Traded 2017 Round 3 pick (Niklas Svedberg) to Berlin for 2016 Round 2 pick (Marc Peninou (named changed to Alexander Kerfoot))

Traded Tony Martensson to Berlin for Matt Read

Traded 2018 Round 2 pick to Copenhagen for Martin Thornberg

Moves After Season 5 started