Owner: Sara Sampaio, Portuguese super model
Farm Club – HC Porto (Portugal)
GM: Bryan Camara (4th GM in team’s history)
Coach: Willie Desjardins (Replaced Peter Laviolette after Season 4; Laviollette replaced Todd McLellan after Season 3)
Last season: 11th overall (lost to Geneva)
Ins and Outs (Season 9 to Season 10)
Out: Daniel Fernholm (free agent), Michael Grabner (free agent), Mike Richards (free agent), Gerhard Unterluggauer (free agent), Karel Rachunek (free agent), Jason Krog (retired), Matt Gilroy (retired),
In: Luke Adam (trade); Marc Staal (free agent), Alex Goligoski (free agent), Cody Eakin (waivers), Vitali Kravtsov (draft)
In Place (Key players signed past Season 10)
John Tavares, C; Steven Stamkos, RW; Drew Doughty, D; Max Domi, LW; Karri Ramo, G
Three Questions
1. Can Stamkos and Tavares still dominate? Every game, Lisbon has the honor of trotting out the two most productive players to ever play in the EURO League. Numbers 1 and 2. Steven Stamkos has 945 career points and his linemate of the last five seasons – John Tavares – has 940. Both 30-year-olds should hit the 1,000 point mark this season, although it will be quite the Mickey Mantle-Roger Maris race to that milestone. Tavares has never missed a Lisbon game in his five seasons, and he has scored more than 100 points in each of those seasons. Stamkos has hit 100 points six times in nine seasons, but only once in the last four seasons. Neither of the two superstars is a defensive liability. Stamkos will block 50 shots per year and takeaway the puck 100 times for you, and Tavares is much, much better, according to the stats. Look for him to block 90 shots and come up with 150 takeaways this season. Young Max Domi will get to start the season on the big line and his speed and craftiness might be a good complement to Tavares and Stamkos. If Domi doesn’t click with them, then smooth Niklas Danielsson will probably get to play with them again this season and he will hope to build on his 30-goal, 77-point season last year. Danielsson doesn’t mind getting his body into traffic and he’ll take the odd penalty if it means protecting his two linemates.
2. What’s Lisbon’s plan? Our investigative team thinks it has cracked Lisbon’s master plan: Rely on the top 6 who get the lion’s share of the ice time and fill in with capable players. OK, the Portuguese team has been doing that for a few years now so it didn’t take an investigative team to figure that out, but the dead giveaway was a trade with Minsk to get Luke Adam to the west coast. Why Adam? They already have Max Domi, Jonathan Drouin and Andre Burakowsky on the left side to back up Steven Stamkos. Why trade for Adam? Oh, we see. It’s his age. Most Websim players peak around age 30. Adam is …. yes, 30. The others we mentioned won’t turn 25 until a year from now. Adam is the kind of guy who will do his job and not make waves. He knows he won’t make the top line on Lisbon and during his career, he’s always played the part of a 3rd- or 2nd-liner, so this set-up seems perfect. This could be a subtle, sage and scrumptious move by GM Bryan Camara.
3. Who will be Drew Doughty’s partner on D? Coming into Season 10, this is the key question in Lisbon. The top forward line is set and so is the starting goalie (Kari Ramo). Doughty will again lead the blueline in ice time but who will be second? Can Jared Spurgeon, Jonos Holos or Sami Vatanen handle that role well enough to push Lisbon to the top? All three are excellent as second pair defensemen, but someone will need to flourish at 23 minutes per game. Doughty was +34 last year and +44 the season before. He is firmly planted on the top pairing. Perhaps an upgrade trade or free agency could fill that hole. Before the free agency steps there were 10 defensemen with 80 OV ratings who were unrestricted free agents, but all their teams had yet to make first offers to them. A big, three-pronged decision awaited Camara this off season. His choices: trade for a surefire top pair defenseman; hope one is available through free agency; or hope Spurgeon, Holos or Vatanen are up to it. He ended up opting for the last choice and signing three veteran free agents to boost the bottom pairing and provide depth.
History
Season Place PTS PP % PK % SPG SAPG GPG GAPG PIM
Season 9 11 94 15.9 82.8 29.34 28.82 3.34 2.98 8.37
Season 8 5 108 21.7 85.7 32.34 27.56 3.73 2.91 10.32
Season 7 8 99 18.5 83.5 30.83 28.18 3.74 2.99 8.18
Season 6 15 86 16.1 81.6 29.99 27.80 3.11 3.16 9.76
Season 5 5 108 23.0 82.9 31.28 27.27 3.91 3.20 8.23
Season 4 14 82 18.5 77.9 30.63 31.39 3.38 3.73 9.70
Season 3 16 83 20.2 80.9 28.39 31.09 3.41 3.46 11.80
Season 2 21 70 13.0 80.3 27.78 30.67 2.83 3.73 11.83
Season 1 23 57 18.8 76.4 26.76 32.20 3.04 4.38 9.78
Top Draft picks
Season 1: Steven Stamkos, C, current age 30. Games played: 734; points: 945; plus-minus +58
Season 2: Karri Ramo, G, age 28. GP: 507; Save Pct. 89.4
Season 3: Seth Jones, D, age 26. GP: 487; points: 137; -1
Season 4: Sami Vatanen, D, age 28. GP: 465; points: 154; +3
Season 5: Nicolas Aube-Kubel, RW, age 21.
Season 6: Adam Lowry, LW, age 25. GP 174, Points 45, +12
Season 7: Frank Vatrano, RW, age 24. GP 161, Points 30, plus-minus 0
Season 8: Lias Andersson, C/LW, age 18.
Season 9: Thomas Spelling, RW, age 24. GP: 81, Points 20, +5
Season 10: Vitali Kravtsov, RW, age 19.
Trade History
Season 1 (picks without years listed are from initial draft)
Traded Round 3 pick (used to draft Brent Seabrook) and Round 4 pick (Jason Spezza ) to Bern for Claude Giroux
Traded Round 7 pick (Slava Voynov), Round 10 pick (Trevor Daley) and 2013 Rd 2 pick (Erik Ersberg) to Madrid for Max Pacioretty
Season 2
Traded Josh Gorges to Prague for Jared Spurgeon
Season 3
Traded 2014 Rd 2 pick (traded later) (Hunter Shinkaruk) to Minsk for Jonas Holos
Season 4
Traded Travis Zajac to Helsinki for Kyle Clifford and Gareth Roberts.
Season 5
Traded Max Pacioretty to Moscow for Darnell Nurse, 2016 Round 1 pick (later traded to Copenhagen – Marten Madsen) and 2017 Round 1 pick (Adam Lowry)
Traded 2016 Round 1 pick (Linus Klasen) to Gothenburg for Zach Parise
Traded Dougie Hamilton, Gareth Roberts and 2016 Round 1 pick (Moscow’s, later traded to Bratislava – Marten Madsen) to Copenhagen for Shea Weber
Traded Claude Giroux to Edinburgh for John Tavares
Transactions after the start of Season 5:
Claimed Mike Ribeiro (waivers)
Signed Hayden Hawkey (free agent)
Claimed Jordan Caron (waivers)
Traded Joe Thornton to Bern for Evgeny Kuznetsov and Mats Rosselli Olsen
Traded 2017 Round 3 pick (Melker Karlsson) to Moscow for Aleksey Kalyuzhny
Traded Jacob De La Rose to Copenhagen for Clarke MacArthur
Season 6
Traded Kyle Brodziak and 2018 Round 1 pick (Jaccob Slavin) to Copenhagen for Joe Pavelski and 2018 Round 3 pick (Bern’s originally – Max Jones)
Traded 2017 Round 2 pick (Colin White) to Minsk for 2017 Round 2 pick (Mathew Barzal) and 2017 Round 3 pick (Evgeny Svechnikov)
Traded Adam Lowry to Stockholm for Marcus Foligno
After Season 6 started:
Traded Clarke MacArthur to Dublin for 2018 Round 2 pick (Frank Vatrano)
Claimed Matt Martin on waivers
Season 7
Traded Nick Bjugstad to Milan for Niklas Danielsson
Traded 2020 Round 3 pick (Maxim Sushko) to Belfast for Matt Moulson
Traded Marcus Foligno, Darnell Nurse and 2019 Round 3 pick (Tyler Parsons) to St. Petersburg for Wayne Simmonds and 2019 Round 2 pick (Berlin’s) (later traded and used to pick Filip Hronek)
Traded Emerson Etem and Magnus Paajarvi to Dublin for Ryan Kesler
Traded Matt Martin (later reacquired off waivers) to Dublin for Brendan Perlini
Traded Evgeny Kuznetzov and 2019 Round 2 (Berlin’s) pick (Filip Hronek) to Berlin for 2019 Round 1 pick (Casey Mittelstadt)
Season 8
Traded Damon Severson and 2021 Round 3 pick to London for Dion Phaneuf and Michael Grabner
Traded 2019 Round 2 pick (Nikita Zaitsev) to Munich for 2020 Round 2 pick (Isaac Ratcliffe)
Traded Yannik Weber to Dublin for 2021 Round 3 pick
Season 9
Traded Dion Phaneuf and 2021 Round 3 (Dublin’s) pick to Dublin for
2020 Round 2 pick (Alexis Vanier)
Traded Seth Jones and 2022 Round 2 pick to Copenhagen for Andre Burakovsky and Jonathan Drouin
Traded Ryan Kesler to Helsinki for 2022 Round 3 pick
Traded 2021 Round 2 pick to Berlin for Talgat Zhailauov
Season 10
