Season 9: Copenhagen Tridents

pro COPENHAGEN

Owner: Tommy Ahlers, founder & CEO of ZYB, a popular social media & networking site in Denmark.

Farm club: Malmo (Sweden) Redhawks Malmo Redhawks

GM: Martin Sayle (2nd GM in team’s history)

Coach: Paul Maurice (replaced Dave Cameron after Season 7; Cameron replaced Paul Maurice after Season 4; Maurice replaced Brent Sutter after Season 3)

Last season: 4th overall; (In playoffs, defeated St. Petersburg; lost to Belfast)

Ins and Outs (Season 8 to Season 9)

Out: Andrew Ladd (free agent), Stephen Weiss (free agent), Ryan Wilson (free agent), Andre Burakovsky (trade), Jonathan Drouin (trade), Ryan Ellis (buyout)

In: Seth Jones (trade), Josh Bailey (free agent), Derick Brassard (free agent), Andreas Jamtin (free agent), Eemeli Rasanen (draft), Nikita Voles (draft), Luke Martin (draft)

In Place (Key players signed past Season 9)

Auston Matthews, C; Johnny Gaudreau, LW; Dougie Hamilton, D; Andres De La Garma, G; Slava Voynov, D

Three Questions

1. What are the Tridents most worried about? Copenhagen has zoomed up the standings the last two seasons and last year, they came close to winning the President’s Trophy as the league’s top team but they ran aground just before reaching the shore. General Manager Martin Sayle made some shrewd moves last season and he seems to have a solid team in place in Denmark. A couple of things have to be worrying him though. One is the salary cap. Sayle currently has two quality right wings playing in Malmo on the farm club in Devin Setoguchi and Drew Shore. Both were regulars last year and they have been demoted. Why? Either they said something bad about Sayle’s family, said something nice about a rival Ahearne Division GM’s family, or they make too much money. Both have salaries of $4.2 million or higher. Another worry is the age of great goalie Henrik Lundquist. King Henrik hasn’t shown his age yet – his save percentage was 90.7 last year – but he is bound to at some point. He is 37 this season. Mexican Andres De La Garma, 26, is heir-apparent to the goalie throne should Lundquist be deposed.

2. Is Matthews the new leader of this club? Well … yeah. Andrew Ladd and longtime fan favorite Stephen Weiss are both gone now; Lundquist, Victor Hedman and Alexander Steen are the captains and assistants; and veterans Jeff Carter and Brandon Dubinsky wield a lot of influence in the dressing room, but highly touted Auston Matthews is the player all Trident players and fans look to as the on-ice leader. The guy scored 80 points last season, which is 20 more than Dubinsky scored as the second-highest scorer on the team. Matthews won the Rookie of the Year trophy and he has size, skill and a deadly shot. The 32 goals he scored as a 20-year-old will not hold up as his personal best in that category. Matthews has been working with fellow young dudes Johnny Gaudreau and Marko Dano, with Dubinsky and Carter centering two other potent lines. Copenhagen has great speed among the forwards and they are willing to backcheck. If the forwards needed to improve one part of their game from last season, it was on the powerplay and boy have they accomplished that early in Season 9. They are best in the league with a 31.4 success rate through 9 games.

3. How good is the defense corps? Coach Paul Maurice asked GM Sayle not to strip the blueline when it came time to crunch salary cap numbers and the coach got his wish. And then some. The top 6 Trident Dmen last season were Slava Voynov, Dougie Hamilton, Victor Hedman, Erik Gustafsson, Dalton Prout and Ian White. Four of those guys played in all 82 games and the other two both missed just 4 games. They were dependable and good, all contributing with at least 22 points and 66 blocked shots. This season, White is not with the group. He was sent to Malmo when Sayle acquired Seth Jones from Lisbon, a move that no one – well, maybe White – saw as a bad thing. So this group seems set for years because almost all of them are on long-term deals. It will become interesting in two or three seasons when good young defensemen Noah Hanifin, Jake McCabe and Thomas Chabot are ready to take the Oresund Bridge from Malmo to Copenhagen. That will be a good problem for Sayle and Maurice to deal with.

History

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

Season 8 4 109 17.7 83.9 34.22 28.15 3.48 2.80 8.84

Season 7 12 89 18.1 83.2 30.84 28.57 3.15 3.30 9.18

Season 6 23 55 16.9 77.6 28.29 31.46 2.60 3.95 8.02

Season 5 20 63 12.7 80.5 29.33 29.51 2.80 3.76 9.88

Season 4 12 90 21.0 85.2 33.11 27.41 3.30 3.00 10.23

Season 3 2 111 22.4 83.3 32.24 28.66 3.95 2.99 9.90

Season 2 1 114 18.2 86.3 33.13 27.65 3.72 2.59 8.89

Season 1 4 108 19.9 86.3 32.10 29.05 3.66 2.76 9.57

Top Draft picks

Season 1: Roberto Luongo, G, current age 40. Games played: 380; Save Pct. 90.0

Season 2: Kevin Dallman, D, age 32. GP 544, Pts 263, -26

Season 3: Nikita Zadorov, D, age 23. GP 269, Pts 93, -38

Season 4: Nick Holden, D, age 31. GP 403, Points 133, -15

Season 5: Simon Hjalmarsson, C, age 26. GP 222, Pts 65, -3

Season 6: Johnny Gaudreau, LW, age 24. GP 243, Points 186, -85

Season 7: Auston Matthews, C, age 21. GP 85, Points 81, -6

Season 8: Gabe Vilardi, C, age 18.

Season 9: Eemeli Rasanen, D, age 19.

Trade History

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

Traded Round 3 pick (used to draft Jimmy Howard) to Oslo for Round 5 pick (used to draft Andrew Ladd) and Round 7 pick (Alex Goligoski)

Traded Round 5 pick (Paul Stastny) and Round 12 pick (Marc Staal) to Helsinki for Round 4 pick (Stephen Weiss)

Traded Alexandre Burrows to Oslo for Round 8 pick (Andrej Meszaros) and Round 12 pick (Boyd Gordon)

Season 2

Traded Jonas Hiller and Darrell Powe to Stockholm for Mark Giordano and Matthieu Garon

Traded Andrew Ladd, Brandon Sutter and Kevin Dallman to Moscow for Alexander Ovechkin and Dave Bolland

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

Season 3

Traded Dave Bolland and Dany Heatley to Munich for Brooks Laich and Tomas Zaborsky

Traded 2015 Round 2 pick (Julius Honka) to Minsk for Andres De La Garma

Traded Kevin Shattenkirk, Teddy Purcell and Carl Gunnarsson to London for Shea Weber

Season 4

Traded Roberto Luongo to Zurich for Brian Elliott

Traded Colin Greening to Stockholm for T.J. Brodie

Traded Mark Giodano, Nikita Zadorov, Charlie Coyle and 2016 Round 1 pick to Munich for Dion Phaneuf

Season 5

Traded 2016 Round 2 pick (Reto Suri) to Madrid for Andrew Cogliano

Traded 2016 Round 3 pick (Michael Keranen) to Zurich for Martin Thornberg

Traded Shea Weber to Lisbon for Dougie Hamilton, Gareth Roberts and 2016 Round 1 pick (Morten Madsen)

Traded Andrej Meszaros to Madrid for Marko Dano and 2017 Round 2 pick (Ilya Samsonov)

Traded Dion Phaneuf to Berlin for Slava Voynov, Martin Erat and 2017 Round 3 pick (Linden Vey)

Traded Alexander Ovechkin to Belfast for Joe Pavelski, Jonathan Drouin and 2016 Round 1 pick (Ville Vahalahti)

Traded Martin Thornberg to Edinburgh for 2018 Round 2 pick (later traded to Paris- Radek Faksa)

Traded Matt Frattin and 2016 Round 1 pick (Morten Madsen) to Bratislava for 2017 Round 1 pick (Simon Hjalmarsson)

Traded Alex Goligoski to Athens for Brooks Orpik, Bryan Bickel and 2017 Round 1 pick (Ivan Provorov)

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

Traded Troy Brouwer to Bratislava for a 2017 Round 2 pick (Daniel Sprong)

After the start of Season 5

Traded Brooks Laich, Andrew Cogliano and Nick Holden to Madrid for Brian Campbell and 2017 Round 1 pick (Jean-Gabriel Pageau)

Traded Thomas Greiss to Bern for 2018 Round 3 pick (later traded to Lisbon – Max Jones)

Lost Bryan Bickell (waivers)

Traded Brian Campbell and 2018 Round 3 pick (Phil Di Giuseppe) to Milan for Jonathan Blum

Claimed Benoit Pouliot (waivers)

Claimed Clarke MacArthur (waivers)

Traded Angelo Nigro (formerly Chris Legge) to Gothenburg for 2019 Round 3 pick

Claimed Chris Kunitz (waivers)

Claimed Steve Ott (waivers)

Traded Nathan Gerbe and 2017 Round 2 pick (Ilya Samsonov) to Paris for Andre Burakovsky

Traded T.J. Brodie and Gareth Roberts to Munich for David Bolland and 2017 Round 2 pick (Petr Mrazek)

Traded Clarke MacArthur to Lisbon for Jacob De La Rose

Season 6

Traded 2017 Round 1 pick (Ivan Provorov) to Paris for Jared McCann

Traded Joe Pavelski and 2018 Round 3 pick (Bern’s originally – Max Jones) to Lisbon for Kyle Brodziak and 2018 Round 1 pick (Jaccob Slavin)

Traded Steve Chalmers, 2017 Round 2 pick (Daniel Sprong) and 2017 Round 3 pick (Linden Vey) to Stockholm for Jeff Carter

Traded Dave Bolland, Martin Erat, Benoit Pouliot and 2018 Round 2 pick (originally Edinburgh’s – Radek Faksa) to Paris for 2018 Round 1 pick (Jake McCabe), Craig Paquette, Jordan Caron and Colton Gillies.

Traded Dennis Rasmussen to Belfast for Mathieu Perreault

After Season 6 started: Traded Nathan Gerbe and Colin Greening to Madrid for Jonas Hiller, Lee Stempniak, Daniel Winnik and 2018 Madrid Round 1 pick (Michael McLeod).

Bought out Chris Kunitz and Daniel Winnik.

Lost Ben Smith (waivers)

Signed Damien Brunner (free agent)

Season 7

Traded Josh Holden and 2018 Round 2 pick (Brett Pesce) to Edinburgh for Brandon Dubinsky

After season started: traded Ilya Nikulin and Lars Eller to Stockholm for Dalton Prout and Tomas Jurco

lost Damien Brunner (waivers)

Season 8

Traded Kyle Brodziak and 2020 Round 3 pick (reacquired in a trade) (Luke Martin) to Berlin for Jeff Carter

Traded Jaccob Slavin to Belfast for Victor Hedman

Traded 2020 Round 2 pick (Maxime Comtois) to Bern to 2020 Round 3 pick (Nikita Voles) and 2020 Round 3 pick (Luke Martin)

Claimed Ryan Wilson (waivers)