Farm Club: MAC Budapest (Hungary) 
GM: Peter Ott (5th GM in team’s history)
Coach: Guy Boucher (replaced Paul MacLean after Season 8, who replaced Patrick Roy after Season 7; Roy replaced Dave Tippett)
Last season: 18th overall (out of the playoffs)
Ins and Outs (Season 8 to Season 9)
Out: James Neal (free agent), Cory Conacher (free agent)
In: Miro Aaltonen (draft), Ryan Poehling (draft), Gustav Lindstrom (draft), Alexandre Texier (draft), Maxim Sushko (draft)
In Place (Key players signed past Season 9)
Mark Scheiffele, C; Martin Ruzicka, RW; Alex Galchenyuk, LW; Nail Yakupov, LW; Torey Krug, D; Roman Josi, D 
Three Questions
1. What is their biggest problem? Prague gave up too many goals in Season 8. In fact, no team in the league gave up more. Goalies Ondrej Pavelec and Andrey Vasilevskiy need to do better. The defense corps in front of them has to do better too – and there is a strong probablity they will. The names on the blueline are virtually unchanged but all are younger than 30 and that means they all got better since the last time you saw them. The Prague defensemen ooze finesse and hockey sense and the top four are capable of piling up points. But all six of Prague’s starters are classified as offensive defensive. Therefore, Prague needs most games to be a track meet – a 7-6 game – to be successful. And they could make that happen. Torey Krug, Justin Schultz and Roman Josi all tallied more than 30 points last season and if this team finds its footing, they could all be over 40 this season.
2. What’s the best part about the Prague team? Sparta is a better-than-average offensive team. They finished 11th in the EURO in goals per game and they were 15th in shots per game, which means Sparta has a pretty good team shooting percentage. Nail Yakupov led the team in goals (27) and points (67), just ahead of J.T. Miller (66). Marcus Johansson had a shooting percentage of 18.6, which was fifth best in the league among full-time players and good enough to get him 21 goals while averging just 12 minutes of ice time per game. That trio figures to be Prague’s second line behind Mark Scheifele, Alexander Galchenyuk and Martin Ruzicka, but what a second line that could be. First round draft pick Miro Aaltonen, 22, is a superb passer who should get plugged into the lineup, perhaps on the third line to work with Matt Nieto and Evgeny Kuznetsov, who last year had a shooting percentage of 14.3.
3. Where else are they good? In the PO rating column. Every player likely to be skating on opening night has a Potential Rating of 80 or higher. Wow. On top of that, Sparta has an army of prospects waiting for their Websim attributes and they have all their draft picks plus 4 more from other teams, including two first-rounders. If you got points for saving for the future, Prague General Manager Peter Ott would have plenty of them. Keeping this promising group together and under the salary cap will be difficult for Ott. That might have been his thinking behind letting veteran Brent Seabrook go through waivers just before the start of Season 9. It has been a long time since Prague fans saw a home playoff game, but with most of Sparta’s stars in the 26-29 age group, they could make it this season.
History
Season Place PTS PP % PK % SPG SAPG GPG GAPG PIM
Season 8 18 72 17.8 76.6 28.62 31.34 3.22 3.88 8.09
Season 7 21 66 20.8 79.8 25.87 33.18 3.11 4.10 8.67
Season 6 16 78 17.3 77.2 27.04 31.60 3.18 3.54 9.28
Season 5 16 81 21.6 72.9 31.37 30.41 3.40 3.68 5.52
Season 4 19 72 18.5 77.3 29.63 30.82 3.22 4.01 9.16
Season 3 23 61 13.4 79.6 26.28 32.96 2.89 4.18 11.18
Season 2 22 70 19.4 79.6 28.60 31.20 3.33 3.77 10.49
Season 1 6 103 19.9 78.4 31.63 29.35 3.89 3.21 8.24
Top Draft picks
Season 1: Zach Parise, LW, current age 35. Games played: 642; points: 651; -246
Season 2: Nail Yakupov, LW, age 26. GP 550, Pts. 318, +51
Season 3: Justin Schultz, D, age 28. GP 487, Pts 244, -137
Season 4: Torey Krug, D, age 27. GP 404, Pts 165, -87
Season 5: Vladimir Roth, D, 24. GP 226, Pts 54, -21
Season 6: Calvin Pickard, G, age 25. GP 172, Save Pct 89.9
Season 7: Mikhail Sergachev, D, age 20.
Season 8: Miro Heiskanen, D, age 19.
Season 9: Miro Aaltonen, C, age 22.
Trade History
Season 2
Traded Nicklas Kronwall to Athens for Michal Rozsival and 2014 Round 1 pick (used to pick Justin Schultz)
Traded Nicklas Grossman and 2015 Round 3 pick to Minsk for Andrej Sekera
Traded P-A Parenteau to Oslo for Thomas Vanek
Traded Thomas Vanek and Mike Weaver to Geneva for Justin Williams, Ryan Malone and Jeff Woywitka
Traded Jared Spurgeon to Frankfurt for Josh Gorges
Traded Michal Rozsival and Kyle Palmeiri to Athens for Jared Spurgeon and Nick Johnson
Traded Michael Ryder to Athens for Marcel Hossa
Traded Chad Larose and 2015 Round 2 pick to Milan for Saku Koivu
Traded Joel Armia to Athens for Mark Scheifele
Season 3
Traded Zach Parise to Minsk for Alexander Galchenyuk and Romas Josi
Season 4
Season 5
Season 6
After Season 6 started: Traded Ryan Nugent-Hopkins to Berlin for David Pastrnak and 2018 Round 1 pick (Dennis Cholowski)
Traded Bryan Little to Stockholm for Marcus Johansson
Traded Tomas Jurco to Stockholm for J.T. Miller and Connor Bleackley
Signed Tomas Plekanec (free agent)
Season 7
Traded Calvin Pickard to Berlin for Aleksander Barkov
Traded Andrey Bykov to Berlin for 2020 Round 1 (Stockholm’s) pick (Ryan Poehling) and 2021 Round 3 pick
Traded Niko Hovinen to Belfast for Andrey Vasilevskiy, Julius Nattinen, 2019 Round 1 pick and 2020 Round 3 (Lisbon’s) pick (Maim Sushko)
After season started: claimed Trevor Daley (waivers)
Season 8
Traded Aleksander Barkov to Berlin for Evgeny Kuznetsov and Klim Kostin
Traded David Pastrnak to Belfast for James Neal, Michael Dal Colle, Robert Thomas, 2021 Round 1 pick, 2022 Round 1 pick and 2021 Round 2 pick
Season 9
