Season 8 profile: Dublin Fighting Irish

pro DUBLIN

Farm Club: Cool Mokum Amsterdam (Netherlands)

GM: Gayle Rock (Fourth GM in team’s history)

Coach: Bruce Cassidy (replaced Paul MacLean after Season 7; MacLean replaced Dave Tippett after Season 4; Tippett replaced Alain Vigneault after Season 3)

Last season: 16th overall, (In playoffs, lost to Minsk)

Ins and Outs (Season 7 to Season 8)

Out: Phil Kessel (free agent), Olexander Pobyedonostsev (free agent)

In: Dustin Byfuglien (free agent), Patric Hornquist (free agent), Frans Nielsen (free agent), Elias Pattersson (draft), Kristian Vesalainen (draft)

In Place (Key players signed past Season 8)

Hampus Lindholm, D; Jakub Silfverburg, RW; Cam Talbot, G; Cody Hodgson, C; Ryan Murray, D

Three Questions

1. What is different about the Season 8 Fighting Irish? Not much. A right wing and a defenseman, to be more specific. The Irish only lost Phil Kessel and Olexander Pobyedonostsev from last year’s lineup and they were replaced by Patric Hornquist and Dustin Byfuglien, so General manager Gayle Rock was able to take advantage of the economic problems this off season and the fact many teams took themselves out of the free agent market by signing two very good players to long-term deals at manageable salaries. Byfuglien is too big and strong to not contribute this season. The 265-pound truck has scored at least 14 goals in all seven of his EURO seasons thus far and he’s dished out more than 200 hits in each of the last three seasons. He is intimidating, can clear the front of the Dublin net with ease, he had more takeaways than giveaways the last two seasons, and he has good leadership skills. His skating will slow in the next few years, but Rock got a bargain when she signed him to a $4.8 million contract. Some see Hornquist as a borderline first/second line winger, but he has generated over 200 shots on goal and scored at least 24 goals in each of his last four seasons, which includes his departure from Berlin to St. Petersburg before last season. He is a strong defensive player and one of the better forecheckers in the league. Kessel was one-dimensional so it looks like Dublin didn’t take a step backwards in the off-season and probably took a step forward.

2. Is offense going to be an issue? Dublin has averaged less than 30 shots per game for the last five seasons. The top teams always are over 32 per game, so Dublin would do well to get that average up. Even with Kessel – who shot pucks early and often – gone, the average could go up a little this season because only 2 of the team’s 12 forwards are over age 30. That means 10 forwards will improve as the season goes on and they near their individual playing peaks. Coach Bruce Cassidy’s immediate task will be to find where chemistry exists between forwards. Top center Cody Hodgson is crafty and capable of making pinpoint passes on the rush. But which wingers are best for that kind of center? James Van Riemsdyk’s north-south thinking seems to be perfect for Hodgson, but only time will tell. On the right side, will Hornquist be a better option than Jakob Silfverberg, or will Hornquist’s hard-charging, stand-in-front-of-the net style work better with a slightly bigger and stronger puck possession center like Jakub Petruzalek? Those are the kinds of mysteries Cassidy will be trying to solve as Dublin hopes to move up the standings this season.

3. How does the defense look? Cam Talbot seems to have replaced Brian Elliott as the top goalie in the system. The 30-year-old Talbot earned the job after stopping an impressive 91.8 percent of the shots at Dublin’s net in 41 games last season. But Elliott is one heck of a backup, and Dublin also has a couple of solid goalies in Amsterdam – Jonathan Bernier and Jake Allen – waiting to be called to the big team should Cassidy lose faith in Talbot and Elliott, so the team seems to have plenty of options in goal. On the blue line, newcomer Byfuglien immediately becomes the focal point. He will be allowed to play as many minutes as he wants and his big body can take. The other five starters are all pretty good but if Dublin had more cap space, Matthew Carle would be in the lineup and Yannik Weber wouldn’t. The six as a group are decent skaters – not great, but decent – with extremely good puck skills. The forwards will benefit from this group’s puck handling and passing skills. Not including Byfuglien, they are a bit on the small and tentative side as defensemen go, so if the other team gets them pinned in the Dublin zone, this group will struggle and the goalies will face sustained periods of offensive pressure. Hampus Lindholm and Ryan Murray will be key members of the team this year and in the future so Cassidy and Rock will be hoping they progress as the season goes on. Yegor Milovsorov, a 24-year-old Russian with good potential, would benefit from ice time, so veterans such as Weber, James Wisniewski and Renat Mamashev will be looking over their shoulders should things go south in Dublin.

History

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

Season 7 16 75 19.7 81.3 28.77 31.87 2.96 3.46 7.52

Season 6 18 77 17.0 79.6 29.94 30.21 3.11 3.59 8.06

Season 5 13 85 16.8 84.9 28.37 32.17 3.07 3.12 8.13

Season 4 20 71 20.9 81.3 29.43 33.35 2.88 3.73 10.15

Season 3 7 99 17.4 84.6 29.83 31.34 3.66 3.18 9.35

Season 2 7 98 19.5 84.9 31.22 30.45 3.56 3.11 9.98

Season 1 13 90 17.9 81.3 31.07 30.33 3.39 3.30 8.95

Top Draft picks

Season 1: Alexander Ovechkin, LW, current age 33. Games played: 560; Points 530; -38

Season 2: Olexander Pobyedonostsev, D, age 32; GP 450; Pts 133; -100

Season 3: Jake Allen, G, age 27

Season 4: Brendan Perlini, LW, age 21

Season 5: Nardo Nagtzaam, C, age 24. GP 162; Points 11; -7

Season 6: Jori Lehtera, C, age 29. GP 48; Points 16; plus-minus 0

Season 7: Pierre-Luc Dubois, C/W, age 19.

Season 8: Elias Pettersson, C/LW, age 18.

Trade History

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

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

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

Traded Alexander Ovechkin and 2014 Round 1 pick (Darrell Nurse) to Moscow for Phil Kessel and Bobby Ryan

Traded Scott Hartnell, Tim Gleason, 2013 Round 1 pick (later traded) (Nail Yakupov), 2015 Round 1 pick (later traded) (Matt Nieto) and $5 million to Athens for Evander Kane and Alexander Sulzer

Traded 2013 Round 2 pick (Niclas Danielsson) and $1.35 million to Milan for Zbynek Michalek and Jaroslav Spacek

Traded Boone Jenner to Helsinki for Jakub Silfverberg and 2013 Round 2 pick (Olexander Podbyedonostsev)

Season 2

Traded Tomas Fleischmann to Copenhagen for 2014 Round 1 pick (Jake Allen)

Season 4

Traded Bobby Ryan to Stockholm for Jakub Petruzalek and James Van Riemsdyk

Season 5

Traded 2017 Round 2 pick (Pavel Zacha) to Minsk for Renat Mamashev

Traded Tim Thomas and 2017 Round 1 pick (Noah Hanifin) to Copenhagen for Brian Elliott

Season 6

Traded Evander Kane and Nardo Nagtzaam to Belfast for Alexander Ovechkin and Cody Hodgson

After Season 6 started: Traded 2018 Round 2 pick (Frank Vatrano) to Lisbon for Clarke MacArthur;