Team owner: Sergei Smirnov, former director of JSC Proletarsky Zavod
Farm Club: Sibir Novosibirsk (Russia)
GM: Ben Stuller (3rd GM in team’s history)
Coach: John Stevens (replaced Guy Boucher after Season 8, who replaced Paul Maurice after Season 6, who replaced Kevin Dineen after Season 4)
Last season: 15th overall, (In playoffs, lost to Copenhagen)
Ins and Outs
(Season 8 to Season 9)
Out: Jan Kovar (trade), Brent Burns (trade), Karl Alzner (free agent), Roman Polak (free agent), Matt Irwin (free agent), Dmitri Kalinin (free agent), Niklas Hjalmarsson (free agent), Chris Tanev (free agent), Troy Brouwer (free agent),
In: Loui Eriksson (free agent), Philip Larsen (free agent), Michael Sauer (free agent), Marc-Andre Bourdon (free agent), Simon Despres (waivers), Zack Smith (free agent), Sam Gagner (free agent), Morgan Frost (draft), Alexander Volkov (draft),
In Place
(Key players signed past Season 9)
Patrik Laine, LW; Sergei Mozyakin, C; Vladimir Tarazenko, RW; Juuse Saros, G; Darnell Nurse, D
Three Questions
1. Does GM Ben Stuller hate defensemen? Not all of them; just the ones he had on his team last season. Brent Burns was traded away and six more blueliners were let go as free agents in the off season. That leaves John Carlson, Darnell Nurse and Russian Ilya Nikulin with new players to get used to back there. That’s probably a good thing because only two teams allowed more shots on goal last season than the Krasnyye Zvezdy (Red Stars) did in Season 8. The 32.51 shots against per game was also the worst ever performance by a team from Petrograd in that category. So fans will hope Philip Larsen, Marc-Andre Bourdon and Michael Sauer will improve things. They should. All three have defense ratings of 84 or better, instantly making them the three most defensive-minded of the sextet, and they bring a lot of experience with knowledge of a lot of teams’ systems. Larsen played 446 games, almost all with Bratislava; Bourdon played 498 games with Moscow, Madrid and Milan; and Sauer has 301 games played with Zurich, Munich and Helsinki.
2. Do they have forward depth? Do they ever! Somehow, the Krasnyye Zvezdy were able to fit 12 very good forwards under the cap. The team has a fourth line that could play many more minutes per game on other teams. David Desharnais and David Bolland have 76 OV ratings and their right winger Vladimir Tarasenko is an 81. Poor Vlad. He can’t seem to stay off the fourth line in this league. In six seasons with the Belfast Giants, he never averaged 10 minutes per game. Last season, his first in native Russia, he was given 13 minutes a game and scored 20 goals and 50 points, but early this season, Tarasenko, 28, finds himself on the fourth line again. Loui Eriksson was signed as a free agent just before the season started and Coach John Stevens has the vet playing with Sergei Mozyakin and Patrik Laine on the top line. That promises to be a line that can match up with any line in the EURO. All four of St. Petersburg’s forward lines are pretty well rounded. If you are looking to match your top offensive line against the Red Stars’ weakest defensive line, you are going to be disappointed because there isn’t one. They don’t have a ton of size up front, but Stevens has sent down two big guys – Marcus Foligno and Danis Zaripov – because they take too many penalties.
3. They went from 22nd, to 17th, to 15th … how about this year? It all depends on goalies Simeon Varlamov and Juuse Saros. Alexander Salak in Moscow and Braden Holtby in Stockholm are probably the best goalies in the Kharlamov Division this year. If Varlamov can up his game to compete with them, look for a sizeable jump in the standings this year. Minsk is still going to be very good, but home ice advantage in the first round of the playoffs is a real possibility for SP, thanks to the strong and balanced forwards and the defensive-minded additions that Stuller made on the blueline. Last season, 31-year-old Varlamov had a save percentage of 89.4 with one shutout. Not good enough. He needs to improve his save percentage by a point and a half and he’s got to slam the door on more teams with shutouts and timely saves; and Saros has to get wins for the team when he gets his turns. Bet on the Krasnyye Zvezdy improving on their 15th-place finish in Season 8. And if Varlamov finds his groove, the sky is the limit.
History
Season Place PTS PP % PK % SPG SAPG GPG GAPG PIM
Season 8 15 81 20.5 77.6 28.39 32.51 3.21 3.57 12.05
Season 7 17 73 18.9 81.8 30.66 30.04 3.00 3.56 10.37
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 37. Games played: 525; Save Pct. 90.5
Season 2: Danis Zaripov, LW, age 27. GP 263, Pts 61, +27
Season 3: Cam Atkinson, RW, age 29. GP 435, Pts 151, -25
Season 4: Mats Zuccarello, LW, age 31. GP 399, Pts 192, +29
Season 5: Jan Kovar, LW, age 27. GP 327, Pts 230, -74
Season 6: Tobias Rieder, RW, age 24. GP 159, Points 33, +12
Season 7: Patrik Laine, W, age 20. GP 86, Points 67, -30
Season 8: Juuse Saros, G, age 22. GP 30, Save Pct. 88.9
Season 9: Morgan Frost, C, 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 (Matt Benning) to Zurich for Ilya Kovalchuk
Traded Wayne Simmonds and Berlin’s 2019 Round 2 pick (later traded to Berlin and used to pick Filip Hronek) to Lisbon for Marcus Foligno, Darnell Nurse and a 2019 Round 3 pick (Tyler Parsons)
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)
Season 8
Traded Joakim Hillding to Stockholm for Ilya Nikulin
Traded Jonathan Huberdeau, Tobias Rieder and Jakob Chychrun to Belfast for Sergei Mozyakin and Vladimir Tarasenko
Traded Kari Lehtonen and Anthony Mantha to Oslo for Semyon Varlamov
Traded 2021 Round 3 pick to Berlin for Roman Polak
Season 9
Traded Oscar Klefbom, Kevin Fiala and 2021 Round 1 pick to Gothenburg for John Carlson and 2021 Round 3 pick
Traded 2020 Round 3 pick (Rhett Gardner) to Bratislava for 2021 Round 3 pick
Traded Jan Kovar to Berlin for 2021 Round 1 pick and 2021 Round 3 pick (St. Petersburg’s originally)
Traded Brent Burns to Copenhagen for Jacob De La Rose and 2021 Roung 3 pick
