GM: Ben Stuller (3rd GM in team’s history)

Coach: Paul Maurice (replaced Kevin Dineen after Season 4)

Last season: 22 overall, did not make playoffs

Ins and Outs

(Season 6 to Season 7)

Out: Wayne Simmonds (trade), Vladimir Sobotka (free agent), Brent Burns (trade), Brad Richards (trade), Jeff Petry (free agent), Artem Anisimov (trade), Mats Zuccarello (trade), Brian Boyle (free agent), Brock Nelson (waivers), Devante Smith-Pelly (trade), David Savard (waivers)

In:  Brent Seabrook (free agent), Joe Thorntion(free agent), Patric Hornquist (free agent), Tyler Bozak (free agent), Kari Lehtonen(free agent), Ilya Kovalchuk (trade), Mattias Sjogren (trade) , Karl Alzner (trade), Marcus Foligno (trade), Patrik Laine (draft), Jeff Chychrun (draft), Alex Petrovic (draft)

In Place

(Key players signed past Season 7)

Cam Atkinson, RW; Jonathan Huberdeau, C; Jan Kovar, LW; Patrik Laine, W; Kari Lehtonen, G

 

 

 

Three Questions

1. Was that the biggest change in St. Petersburg since 1917? If there was a player named Vladimir Ilyich Lenin available, new St. Petersburg GM Ben Stuller would have signed him. Stuller changed the team’s nickname, uniform and team culture in a hurricane of changes between Seasons 6 and 7.  He traded the team’s leading scorer (Wayne Simmonds), top plus-minus player (Brad Richards), and the face of the franchise (Brent Burns) and let other players go via free agency and waivers in a huge makeover. Stuller’s five trades equal the number of trades St. Pete made in Seasons 2 through 6. The result is new faces throughout the lineup and new team leadership, with Ilya Kovalchuk and Joe Thornton taking on roles in the captaincy while playing on different lines. Kari Lehtonen, 34, is among the important additions and he represents an upgrade in goal. Three games into the season, the new team’s performance is pretty good: two wins and 36 shots per game.

2. Who are some of the key players? The top defensemen on the team, Erik Johnson and Brent Seabrook, are being asked by Coach Paul Maurice to do a lot. They will play on the top powerplay unit and will get penalty killing duty, too. But their biggest challenge will be to be every-day contributors to the offense. St. Petersburg’s blue line is loaded with strong defense-minded players, but the offense has to come from somewhere. Johnson and Seabrook can do the job, they just can’t do all of the job. Young Oscar Klefbom will make a lot of nice passes this season, but stay-at-home guys Brenden Dillon, Karl Alzner and Darnell Nurse will not. Another key will be how aggressive new Red Stars Patric Hornquist, Mattias Sjogren and Marcus Foligno play. They are the most intense of the forwards and the team needs them to forecheck hard and hit often because of the returning forwards on the team, Jonathan Huberdeau and Valtteri Filppula had the most hits last season with 61 each. That total only placed them tied at eighth on the list because there were seven forwards on the team last year with more hits and they are all gone now.

3. Is the salary cap a problem? Yes, in fact, the salary cap has St. Petersburg in double grapevines right now and won’t let go. A bit of excess spending has Dmitri Kalinin and Antti Niemi and Viktor Stalberg in the minors and all three should be playing their home games in the Ice Palace on Pyatiletok Prospekt. Kalinin has scored more than 30 points for the Krasnyye Zvezde in each of the last three seasons, Niemi would be a better backup to Kari Lehtonen than Jacob Markstrom is, and Stalberg is a durable winger who likes to hit and who scored 21 goals two seasons ago. Injuries could get them into the lineup, but if they get sent back to the minors later, they could be lost on the waiver wire.

History

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

Season 6             22             65            16.9       79.2        31.18      28.32        2.85     3.62       11.83

Season 5             12              85            17.3       82.4         30.27    29.70       3.10      3.22       11.10

Season 4              23             57          14.20      85.60      30.07    30.96       2.52       3.46       12.02

Season 3              12               89          16.8        82.8        30.6     29.72       3.16       3.29       12.60

Season 2              2             106         17.1        84.9        32.87      29.78      3.29        2.65       10.95

Season 1              3             118         20.5        83.7        32.41     27.82        3.60        2.44        9.05

Top Draft picks

Season 1: Pekka Rinne, G, current age 35. Games played: 403; Save Pct. 90.3

Season 2: Danis Zaripov, LW, age 25. GP 184, Pts 42, +22

Season 3: Cam Atkinson, RW, age 27 GP 280, Pts 91, -34

Season 4: Mats Zuccarello, LW, age 29.  GP 235,  Pts 47, +3

Season 5: Jan Kovar, LW, age 25. GP 164, Pts 95, -21

Season 6: Tobias Rieder, RW, age 22.

Season 7: Patrik Laine, W, age 18.

Trade History

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

Traded Round 6 pick (used to draft Patrik Berglund) and 2013 Round 1 pick (Thomas Powell) to Minsk for Round 4 pick (used to draft Brent Burns)

Traded Patrick Kane to Zurich for Brad Richards

Traded Round 18 pick (Brandon Gormley) to Milan for Round 20 pick (Jonathan Bernier) and Round 22 pick (Jakub Kindl)

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

Traded Daniel Alfredsson to Milan for Viktor Stalberg, 2104 Round 1 (Cam Atkinson) and $1 million

Traded Kyle Wellwood to Edinburgh for David Steckel and 2013 Round 3 (Jamie Oleksiak)

Season 2

Traded Jarome Iginla to Helsinki for Martin St. Louis and 2015 Round 3 pick (Jakub Vrana)

Traded Martin St. Louis to Gothenberg for Devante Smith-Pelley, Ales Hemsky and 2016 Round 2 pick (Alexander Toryanik)

Traded Kevin Bieksa to Stockholm for Gotherburg’s 2015 Round 2 pick (David Savard)

Season 3

Season 4

Traded Marc-Eduoard Vlasic, Blake Wheeler and Pekka Rinne to Gothenburg for Erik Johnson, Martin St. Louis, Antti Niemi, Zack Phillips, Scott Harrington, 2018 Round 1 pick (Jeff Chychrun), 2016 Round 3 pick (Andreas Englund), and 2017 Round 3 pick (Yakov Trenin)

Season 5

Season 6

After Season 6 started: Traded Stefan Ulmer to Berlin for 2019 Round 2 pick

Season 7

Traded Devante Smith-Pelly and 2018 Round 1 pick (Shayne Gostisbehere) to Oslo for 2018 Round 1 pick (Patrik Laine)

Traded Mats Zuccarello-Aasen and a 2018 Round 2 pick (Louis Domingue) to Stockholm for Mattias Sjogren

Traded Artem Anisimov, Brad Richards and 2019 Round 3 pick to Zurich for Ilya Kovalchuk

Traded Wayne Simmonds and a 2019 Round 2 pick to Lisbon for Marcus Foligno, Darnell Nurse and a 2019 Round 3 pick

Traded Brent Burns to Bratislava for Karl Alzner and Anthony Mantha

after season started; Traded Karl Alzner to Moscow for Travis Sanheim; claimed Chris Tanev (waivers)