Farm Club: St. Petersburg Dynamo 

GM: David Reichel (5th GM in team’s history)

Coach: Joel Quenneville (formerly Glen Gulutzan)

Last season: 15th overall (In the playoffs, lost to St. Petersburg)

Ins and Outs:

(Season 9 to Season 10)

Out: Trevor Van Riemsdyk (free agent), Keith Kinkaid (free agent), Brandon Pirri (free agent), Benoit Pouliot (free agent), Melker Karlsson (free agent), Adam McQuaid (retired)

In: Boone Jenner (trade), Aaron Dell (free agent), Halfthor Sigrunarson (free agent), Michael Amadio (free agent), Liam Foudy (draft), Filip Hallander (draft), Cale Addison (draft)

In Place

(Key players signed past Season 10)

Alexander Salak, G; Ryan O’Reilly, C: Boone Jenner, LW; Mitch Marner, RW; Nick Leddy, D

Three Questions

• Where is Moscow strongest? On paper, the Dynamo look a bit like Lisbon H.C. That is, they have 6 really strong players who the coaches and fans wish could build their stamina enough to play 60-65 minutes per game. The rest of the team isn’t at the level that Alexander Salak, Ryan O’Reilly, Nick Leddy, Max Pacioretty, Boone Jenner and Kyle Palmeiri are at. But just like Lisbon, they are a defenseman short of a royal flush. If Coach Joel Quenneville can teach either Pacioretty or Jenner to play D, then Moscow would have a really formidable six-pack out there for more than a third of every game. As it is, Jenner (or Pacioretty) will have to settle for second line minutes with Mitch Marner and David Backes plus special teams time.
• In what areas do they need help? The Moscow goalie is excellent and the forward depth is there but the defense corps looked poor when free agency’s fourth step was finished. Leddy, surprising Jyri Martinnen, and Erik Andersson seemed to have jobs locked up back there. Layne Viveiros, 21, was given 69 games in his rookie season last year and he will play a lot this year unless Moscow brings in more blueline help via free agency, waivers of trades. At the time, the best unsigned defensemen were former Kharlamov Division foes Jared Cowen and Eric Gelinas, but Moscow would have to do some accounting work to afford both, especially since they were still short a backup goalie and a center. Aaron Dell was signed later to back up goalie Salak, but the only other blueliners on the roster were unproven Tyler Plews, Bernd Wolf and aggressive Kilian Van Gorp, a threesome with a combined 20 games played at the EURO level. Another spot where Moscow needs to keep an eye on is center of the second line. Team captain David Backes scored 31 goals and racked up 117 penalty minutes in Season 9, but he’s 36 now and it’s just a matter of time before his playing style lands him on the injured reserve list for a stretch. Mattias Bieber is excellent on faceoffs and very good defensively, but if Quenneville wants him to play up on the second line, Bieber will have to exceed expectations.
• So … playoffs or not? Moscow fans will be biting their nails in March. The Dynamo will be close to the line after finishing 7th in the conference a season earlier. Their Northern Conference foes did well in free agency, and we’re counting Dublin, who acquired the rights to Jordan Staal and Milan Lucic and successfully signed them. And two months into the season, Elias Pettersson will join the Dublin offense to put more pressure on the Dynamo. What Moscow needs most is durability among its big 6 players and it needs more performances like Jiri Tlusty came up with last season. Not expected to light up scoreboards, Tlusty played 15 minutes per game on the left wing and he led the team in plus-minus at +14 (it was his 8th year in a row with a positive rating) and he was among the team leaders in assists with 33. One thing Quenneville seems to get from his team is cohesion and commitment. Most of his forwards, including Tlusty, had positive turnover ratios last year and goalie Salak has to be grateful for their play.

History

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

Season 9              15 85 17.8 81.7 28.66 31.93 3.16 3.46 11.41

Season 8               11            90       19.0        83.3        29.11      30.40       2.96     2.90      9.30

Season 7               13            87       17.2        80.8         29.44     29.98        3.17    3.22       9.79

Season 6               5             106      21.2        86.8         33.38      27.91       3.74    2.88       10.00

Season 5                6           107       20.9         86.9        32.50     27.45      3.67      2.76       9.67

Season 4               1             113        18.6         86.4        35.01     27.01       3.44       2.34      8.62

Season 3              4 (cup)    106          20.9        80.4        32.61     29.48       3.56       3.15      9.45

Season 2              5             101         18.4        83.4        32.62      28.21      3.38        2.8       11.21

Season 1              18             77         15.9        81.1        31.00     29.88        3.10        3.20       8.48

Top Draft picks

Season 1: Anze Kopitar, C, current age 33. Games played 714; Points 786, +24

Season 2: Alexander Salak, G, age 29. GP 325; Save Pct. 90.6

Season 3: Darnell Nurse, D, age 24. GP 253; Pts 55; -27

Season 4: Nikolaj Ehlers, LW, age 23. GP 217; Pts 71; Plus/minus +48

Season 5: Sam Godfrey, D, age 29. GP 60; Pts 15; -11

Season 6: Brock Boeser, RW, age 21. GP 76, Pts 60, +17

Season 7: Olli Juolevi, D, age 21.

Season 8: Cody Glass, C, age 20.

Season 9: Layne Viveiros, D, age 21. GP 69, Pts 22, -5

Season 10: Liam Foudy, C, age 19.

Trade History

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

Traded Round Phil Kessel and Bobby Ryan to Dublin for Alxeander Ovechkin and 2014 Round 1 pick (used to draft Darnell Nurse)

Season 2

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

*Three trades missing from this period. Tomas Kaberle seems to have been traded in one of them.

Season 3

Traded James Van Riemsdyk and Marcus Johansson to Stockholm for Dustin Brown

Season 4

Traded 2015 Round 1 pick to Berlin for Kris Versteeg

Season 5

Traded Darnell Nurse, 2016 Round 1 pick (traded later to Copenhagen and then Bratislava – Morten Madsen) and 2017 Round 1 pick to Frankfurt for Max Pacioretty

Traded Nicolas Ehlers to Helsinki for 2016 Round 1 pick (later traded to Gothenberg)

Traded Kevin Dallman and 2016 Round 1 pick (formerly Helsinki’s – Olli Palola) to Gothenberg for Ryan Suter and Blake Wheeler

Traded Aleksey Morozov to Gothenburg for 2018 Round 3 pick (Trevor Van Riemsdyk)

After Season 5 started

Signed Rich Peverley (free agent)

Traded Alexei Kalyuzhny to Lisbon for a 2017 Round 3 pick (Melker Karlsson)

Season 6

Traded Andrew Ladd, Jaroslav Halak, Brandon Sutter and a 2018 Round 2 pick (Noah Juulsen) to Athens for David Backes, Kyle Palmeiri and a 2018 Round 1 pick (Logan Brown)

After Season 6 started:

Traded Anze Kopitar to Athens for Ryan O’Reilly

Traded Brock Boeser to Helsinki for Mitch Marner

Traded Blake Wheeler, Marc-Andre Bourdon and 2018 Round 3 pick (Tage Thompson) to Madrid for Nick Leddy and Chris Stewart

Signed Mark Fayne and Brian Campbell (free agents)

Bought out Mike Brown

Season 7

Claimed Derek Roy and Gerhard Unterluggauer (waivers)

After season started: Traded Travis Sanheim to St.Petersburg for Karl Alzner

bought out contracts of Vinny Lecavalier and John Mitchell; claimed Riley Nash (waivers)

Season 8

Season 9

Traded 2021 Round 1 pick (later traded to Stockholm and used to pick Ryan Merkley) to Helsinki for Boone Jenner and 2021 Round 3 pick (Cale Addison)

Season 10