Farm Club: Stockholm Sun Towers 
GM: Michael Sauer (third GM in team’s history)
Coach: Mike Johnston (replaced Bob Hartley after Season 4) (Hartley replaced Claude Noel after Season 3)
Last season: 9th overall, (In playoffs, defeated Moscow; lost to Minsk)
Ins and Outs (Season 8 to Season 9)
Out: Bobby Ryan (free agent) , Bryan Little (free agent), Keith Yandle (free agent),
In: Blake Wheeler (free agent), Andrew Ladd (free agent), Karl Alzner (free agent), Joni Ikonen (draft), Roope Laavainen (draft)
In Place
(Key players signed past Season 9)
Jack Eichel, C; Brendan Gallagher, RW; Ryan Johansen, RW; Zach Bogosian, D;
Three Questions
1. What has changed in Stockholm? It seems like most teams build and build and when they near their original goal, the salary cap and older players’ choices erode key pieces of the plan. That holds true in Sweden’s capital where this season starts without three Eagles who played important roles. Stockholm did well in Season 8 with Joe Pavelski centering the top line with Brendan Gallagher and Bobby Ryan as his wings. Ryan has left. The artistic second line’s stabilizing force was Bryan Little. He has left. And powerplay specialist Keith Yandle, who was third among Eagle defensemen in ice time, has also left. Ryan, Little and Yandle all left as free agents, with Little landing in Paris and the other two in Geneva. But General Manager Michael Sauer was able to acquire a trio of quality free agents he hopes can be plugged in to keep the momentum going without a burp. Karl Alzner, 31, is just the opposite kind of player Yandle is, but the defensive defenseman Alzner will be a key penalty killer. Blake Wheeler and Andrew Ladd are good offensive contributors and Ladd has great leadership qualities, although Coach Mike Johnston looks to be ready to place three younger players in the top leadership roles as a sure sign that Stockholm has bigger things in mind than Season 8.
2. What part of their game is best? This has never really been the case with Stockholm, but if you look at the stats, their defense is their best quality. Never until last season had the team managed to limit their opponents to fewer than 30 shots per game, and the better team defense made the job of goalies Braden Holtby and Louis Domingue a little easier, and the whole concoction resulted in the best goals against average (2.99) in the team’s history. The good defense also showed up in penalty killing, where the Eagles were third best in the EURO. The team has a lot of forwards who are willing to back check and that must be why they had such success without the puck because last year, all six defensemen (Zach Bogosian, Cam Fowler, Olli Maatta, John Klingberg, Brady Skjei and Keith Yandle) were classified as offensive defensemen. This year, defense-minded Karl Alzner takes Yandle’s place and will team with young Skjei at the beginning with a promotion to work with Maatta always possible. If you look at the ages of the entire defense corps and goalie crew, you will notice they are all under 30 except for Alzner, who is 31. So they have an even brighter future, right? Not necessarily. Four of them, including Holtby, are on the final year of contracts and the Eagles are less than a half-million dollars under the budget set for them by their owner. So some important roster wrestling is in Sauer’s future as early as a year from now.
3. What does Coach Johnston have in mind with the forward lines? The Eagles’ top two lines are definitely themed. That is, Coach Johnston has the young, future leaders of the team together on one line and the veterans (two of them just signed on with the team) together on another line. The young line features speed and finesse in Jack Eichel, Brendan Gallagher and Mats Zuccarello and that line could have three 30-goal scorers on it in the near future. Regardless of where he plays or with whom he plays, look for Eichel to have a breakout year. The 22-year-old’s career highs so far are 18 goals and 48 points and no one in their right mind expects those to hold up as personal bests even through this year. The older line of Joe Pavelski, Blake Wheeler and Andrew Ladd all of 70-plus point seasons in their recent rear view mirror, so they can do real damage to any team that under-estimates them. The third line could be the key one for Stockholm this year. Ryan Johansen is just plain good with a well-rounded game. He might be one of the very best third-liners in the league. It will be a challenge for whoever is teamed with him but if they can work well with him, good things will happen in Stockholm. Sauer and Johnston would have loved to have Eric Staal with Johansen, but the salary cap couldn’t take Staal’s $5.5 million contract and the three-time all-star was sent to the Stockholm Sun Towers farm club.
History
Season Place PTS PP % PK % SPG SAPG GPG GAPG PIM
Season 8 9 91 16.9 84.4 31.23 29.85 2.96 2.99 8.37
Season 7 14 86 17.8 82.5 29.89 31.24 3.10 3.00 8.73
Season 6 8 93 17.6 81.8 29.88 31.88 3.04 3.09 10.46
Season 5 19 74 15.0 75.6 28.6 32.28 2.82 3.59 10.27
Season 4 15 82 16.9 79.1 26.33 32.91 3.04 3.26 10.00
Season 3 24 57 14.5 77.8 25.77 32.01 2.65 3.76 11.02
Season 2 24 49 12.7 80.0 25.37 34.78 2.33 3.93 11.18
Season 1 11 93 21.5 80.4 32.61 30.01 3.48 3.28 9.01
Top Draft picks
Season 1: Cam Ward, G, current age 35. Games played: 459; Save Pct: 89.5
Season 2: Mattias Sjogren, LW, age 26. GP 489, Pts. 122, -13
Season 3: Brendan Gallagher, RW, age 26. GP 477, Pts. 343, -87
Season 4: Olli Maatta, D, age 24. GP 395, Pts. 122, +28
Season 5: Jindrich Barak, D, age 23. GP 80, Pts. 13, -9
Season 6: John Klingberg, D, 25. GP 232, Points 99, +18
Season 7: Louis Domingue, G, age 25. GP 30, Save Pct. 88.4
Season 8: Brady Skjei, D, age 23. GP 82, Pts. 21, +8
Season 9: Joni Ikonen, C/RW, age 19.
Trade History
Seasons 2 and 3
Traded Keaton Ellerby to London for 2014 Round 3 pick (Curtis Lazar)
Traded Ryan Ellis to Gothenburg for Zach Boychuk
Traded Gothenburg’s 2015 Round 2 pick (David Savard) to St. Petersburg for Kevin Bieksa
Traded Mikko Lehtonen and Gothenburg’s 2014 Round 1 pick (Jonathan Drouin) to Belfast for Rick Nash
Traded Jaden Schwartz to Milan for Mike Richards and 2015 Round 2 pick (later traded to Madrid in Rick Nash trade) (Jake Virtanen)
Traded Kyle Okposo and 2014 Round 1 pick (gotten back later in a trade) (used to pick Brendan Gallagher) to Milan for Dustin Brown and 2014 Round 2 pick (Marcus Foligno)
Traded Cam Ward to Athens for Miikka Kiprusoff and Michal Neuvirth
Traded Josef Vasicek to Paris for Derek Brassard, Ryan Ellis and T.J. Brodie
Traded Miko Koivu to Paris for Jaden Schwartz and Stockholm’s previously traded away 2014 Round 1 pick (Brendan Gallagher)
Traded Loui Eriksson to Berlin for Mikko Lehtonen and 2014 Round 1 pick (Madrid’s) (Sean Monahan)
Traded Mark Fayne and 2014 Round 3 pick (Guillaume Latendresse) to Oslo for Mark Giordano
Traded Ryan Clowe to Paris for 2014 Round 3 pick (Thomas Hickey)
Traded Mark Giordano and Matthieu Garon to Copenhagen for Jonas Hiller and Darroll Powe
Traded Eric Staal to Gothenburg for Sam Gagner, 2014 Round 1 pick (later traded) (Jonathan Drouin) and 2015 Round 2 pick (later traded in Martin St. Louis trade)(David Savard)
Traded Travis Hamonic to Paris for Dmitri Orlov and 2014 Round 1 pick (Bern’s) (Jake Muzzin)
Traded Thomas Hickey to Milan for Magnus Johansson
Traded Rick Nash and 2015 Round 2 pick (Milan’s) (Jake Virtanen) to Madrid Jeff Carter, Ryan Johansen and 2015 Round 1 pick (later traded) (Tomas Hertl)
Traded Dustin Brown to Moscow for Marcus Johansson and James Van Riemsdyk
Traded Magnus Johansson to Munich for Anton Babchuk
Traded Sam Gagner, Michal Neuvirth and 2015 Round 1 pick (Madrid’s) (later traded) (Tomas Hertl) to London for Braden Holtby
Traded Jordan Caron to Paris for Mike Green
Season 4
Traded Shane Doan, Anton Babchuk and Corey Potter to Bern for Mike Cammalleri and Dalton Prout
Traded 2017 Round 3 pick (later traded) (Calle Jarnkrok) to Minsk for 2015 Round 2 pick (Julius Honka)
Traded 2018 Round 3 pick (Nick Merkley) to Paris for Viktor Fasth
Traded T.J. Brodie to Copenhagen for Colin Greening
Traded Jonas Hiller to Madrid for Tomas Vokoun and 2015 Round 2 pick (Nikita Scherbak)
Season 5
Traded James Van Riemsdyk and Jakub Petruzalek to Dublin for Bobby Ryan
Traded Dmitri Orlov and Jake Muzzin to London for Zach Bogosian
Traded Nikita Scherbak to Helsinki for 2016 Round 2 pick (Connor Bleackley) and 2016 Round 3 pick (Oslo’s) (Ryan Gunderson).
Season 6
Traded Karl Alzner to Bratislava for Luke Adam
Traded Jeff Carter to Copenhagen for Steve Chalmers, 2017 Round 2 pick (Daniel Sprong) and 2017 Round 3 pick (Linden Vey)
Traded Mike Richards to Paris for Mikko Koivu, 2017 Round 2 pick (Mirco Mueller) and 2017 Round 3 pick (Vladislav Namestnikov)
Traded 2019 Round 2 pick to Berlin for Erik Ersberg
Traded Pavel Datsyuk to Helsinki for 2017 Round 3 pick (Johan Larsson)
Traded Marcus Foligno to Lisbon for Adam Lowry
Traded Mikko Koivu to Gothenburg for Eric Staal
Traded Sean Monahan, Craig Smith, Jindrich Barak, Cody Ceci and 2018 Round 1 pick (Alexander Nylander) to Munich for Jack Eichel, Charlie Coyle and 2018 Round 2 pick (Sam Steel)
After Season 6 started:
Traded Marcus Johansson to Prague for Bryan Little
Traded Simon Despres to Bratislava for Mark Pysyk
Traded J.T. Miller and Connor Bleakley to Prague for Tomas Jurco
Season 7
Traded Jeff Carter and 2020 Round 1 pick (Ryan Poehling) to Berlin for David Krejci and 2020 Round 2 pick (Joni Ikonen)
Traded Mattias Sjogren to St. Petersburg for Mats Zuccarello and 2018 Round 2 pick (Louis Domingue)
after season started: Traded Tomas Jurco and Dalton Prout to Copenhagen for Ilya Nikulin and Lars Eller; lost Riley Nash (waivers).
Season 8
Traded Ilya Nikulin to St. Petersburg for Joakim Hillding
Traded 2020 Round 3 pick (Dylan Samberg) to Milan for 2019 Round 3 pick (Carter Hart)
Season 9
