Wild off-season for Dublin

Farm Club: Cool Mokum Amsterdam (Netherlands)

Owner: Ivan Menezes, CEO of Diageo, a London-based company that owns Dublin’s Guinness Brewery.

GM: Gayle Rock (Fourth GM in team’s history)

Coach: Bruce Cassidy (replaced Paul MacLean after Season 7; MacLean replaced Dave Tippett after Season 4; Tippett replaced Alain Vigneault after Season 3)

Last season: 17th overall, (Missed the playoffs)

Ins and Outs (Season 9 to Season 10)

Out: Brian Elliott (free agent), Frans Nielsen (retired), Jake Allen (trade), Cody Eakin (waivers), James Wisniewski (free agent), Troy Loggins (trade), Steve Oleksy (trade), Mattias Tedenby (trade) Colton Gillies (trade), Clarke MacArthur (free agent), Magnus Paajarvi (free agent)

In: Milan Lucic (trade), Jordan Staal (trade), Janne Niskala (free agent), Matt Irwin (free agent), Joakim Nygard (trade); Vince Dunn (draft),

In Place (Key players signed past Season 10)

Hampus Lindholm, D; Jordan Staal, C; Jakub Silfverburg, RW; Brad Marchand, LW; Milan Lucic, LW; Cody Hodgson, C

Three Questions

1. As off-seasons go, was that a normal one in Dublin? No. That was a wild ride that GM Gayle Rock took Fighting Irish fans on and the cars are still moving. When veteran players’ Type 3 contracts expire, the team holding their negotiating rights gets first crack at signing them. Minsk wanted to go in a new direction but wanted to get something out of their big-name Type 3 guys Jordan Staal and Milan Lucic. Trading partner Rock liked the possibility of signing them enough to part with what amounted to spare parts. Then Bratislava and Rock made a similar deal for the negotiating rights to Alexander Ovechkin and Ryan Suter. So going into the free agent steps, Dublin was looking at the possibility of adding Ovechkin, Staal, Lucic and Suter to the lineup for virtually nothing. Three of the four were in the Cup Finals two Cups ago. They would cross “Fitting Them Under the Cap Bridge” when they got to it. The real stinker of a possibility was that all four big names could leave the Emerald Isle if they thought the grass was greener elsewhere and Rock would have gotten nothing in the trades. An interesting and nerve-racking gamble by the GM, for sure. As it turned out, it half worked out. The Boys from Minsk signed long-term. $6.1 million deals, but the Boys from Bratislava refused.

2. What’s next? Aside from a home opener against Edinburgh, figuring out who stays and who gets booted off the island is the next challenge facing Dublin management. The Fighting Irish have been very close to making the playoffs the last two years and the fans have not cheered a playoff win since Season 3, so they would dearly love to smell the sweet scent of post-season victory again. That will mean getting to the playoffs in a tough conference and hopefully avoiding the powerhouses at the top. But before any of that occurs, there’s the matter of the salary cap to clear up. As the season begins, Dublin has five players making $20.9 million as members of Dublin’s Cool Mokum Amsterdam farm club. The owner’s not going to like that. Rock and Coach Bruce Cassidy would love to have some of those five in the Irish lineup, but math might prevent that from happening. The GM will spend some of this season trying to convince the owner that it’s worth the expense to have those players handy if a top player gets injured. Or they could go in another direction and trade off parts, even younger parts, to get some of that expense off the books in Amsterdam. Center Jakub Petruzalek, 29, is one of the farm club guys who is hoping Rock figures out a path to Dublin for him. He’s not flashy and doesn’t pile up the points, but he can get and keep pucks for his team better than most can. Two seasons ago, he had 116 takeaways to just 66 giveaways and last year, his ratio was 91-83. He also won more than 54 percentage of the faceoffs he took in Season 9, so having him shut out of the lineup does hurt the team a bit.

3. Where are their strengths? Dublin will throw two strong forward lines at you and the third line is going to be better than most. Cassidy will have a lot of flexibility if he wants to line juggle. He could keep the Minsk Connection of Staal and Lucic together or he could move Cody Hodgson (81 points last season) ahead of Staal or slide Brad Marchand ahead of Lucic. Jakob Silfverberg is one of the game’s better all-around right wings and he should see plenty of ice time, but either way, how do your defensemen like knowing they’ll see Lucic, Marchand and Patric Hornquist every time they play Dublin? Hampus Lindholm, 26, is a potential all-star defenseman who leads a group of steady veterans. Janne Niskala and Matt Irwin got No Movement Clauses when they joined the team, so they are fixtures there with Lindholm and three bruising, hard shooting 35-year-olds in Brent Burns, Dustin Byfuglien and Dion Phaneuf. Those three guys are going to have a hard time playing a full 82-game season, but their knowledge and experience are going to win some games for Dublin. Coaches all over the league will be filming this defense corps from the upper deck and showing their young blueliners how the game is supposed to be played. Cam Talbot has been excellent in goal for the Fighting Irish over the last three seasons (save percentages between 90 and 91.8) and the fans and his teammates will be counting on him to make the difference between playing and watching in April.

History

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

Season 9 17 73 19.8 80.5 28.74 29.78 3.00 3.71 10.61

Season 8 17 77 22.1 81.3 29.73 29.99 3.13 3.37 8.37

Season 7 16 75 19.7 81.3 28.77 31.87 2.96 3.46 7.52

Season 6 18 77 17.0 79.6 29.94 30.21 3.11 3.59 8.06

Season 5 13 85 16.8 84.9 28.37 32.17 3.07 3.12 8.13

Season 4 20 71 20.9 81.3 29.43 33.35 2.88 3.73 10.15

Season 3 7 99 17.4 84.6 29.83 31.34 3.66 3.18 9.35

Season 2 7 98 19.5 84.9 31.22 30.45 3.56 3.11 9.98

Season 1 13 90 17.9 81.3 31.07 30.33 3.39 3.30 8.95

Top Draft picks

Season 1: Alexander Ovechkin, LW, current age 35. Games played: 720; Points 682; -44

Season 2: Olexander Pobyedonostsev, D, age 34; GP 454; Pts 133; -100

Season 3: Jake Allen, G, age 29.

Season 4: Brendan Perlini, LW, age 23

Season 5: Nardo Nagtzaam, C, age 26. GP 326; Points 86; +28

Season 6: Jori Lehtera, C, age 31. GP 128; Points 47; +8

Season 7: Pierre-Luc Dubois, C/W, age 20.

Season 8: Elias Pettersson, C/LW, age 20.

Season 9: Calvin Thurkauf, LW, age 21.

Season 10: Vince Dunn, D, age 21.

Trade History

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

Traded Round 7 pick (used to draft Chris Kunitz) , Round 22 pick (Bryan Allen) and $250,000 to Geneva for Round 8 pick (Olli Jokinen), Round 10 pick (Petr Sykora) and 2013 Round 2 (Ryan Murray)

Traded Round 9 pick (Joe Corvo) and Round 11 pick (Milan Hejduk), Round 13 pick (Josh Bailey) and $10,000 to Munich for Round 8 pick (Tomas Fleischmann), Round 10 pick (James Wisniewski) and Round 16 pick (Nikita Nikitin)

Traded Alexander Ovechkin and 2014 Round 1 pick (Darrell Nurse) to Moscow for Phil Kessel and Bobby Ryan

Traded Scott Hartnell, Tim Gleason, 2013 Round 1 pick (later traded) (Nail Yakupov), 2015 Round 1 pick (later traded) (Matt Nieto) and $5 million to Athens for Evander Kane and Alexander Sulzer

Traded 2013 Round 2 pick (Niclas Danielsson) and $1.35 million to Milan for Zbynek Michalek and Jaroslav Spacek

Traded Boone Jenner to Helsinki for Jakub Silfverberg and 2013 Round 2 pick (Olexander Podbyedonostsev)

Season 2

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

Season 4

Traded Bobby Ryan to Stockholm for Jakub Petruzalek and James Van Riemsdyk

Season 5

Traded 2017 Round 2 pick (Pavel Zacha) to Minsk for Renat Mamashev

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

Season 6

Traded Evander Kane and Nardo Nagtzaam to Belfast for Alexander Ovechkin and Cody Hodgson

After Season 6 started: Traded 2018 Round 2 pick (Frank Vatrano) to Lisbon for Clarke MacArthur;

Claimed Colton Gillies (waivers), Mattias Tedenby (waivers)

Lost Jori Lehtera (waivers)

Claimed Brian Campbell on waiver and then lost him on waivers

Season 7

Traded 2019 Round 2 pick (Cal Foote) to Belfast for Cam Talbot

Traded Brendan Perlini to Lisbon for Matt Martin

Traded Alexander Ovechkin and a 2020 Round 3 pick (Charles Williams) to Bratislava for Dylan Strome, Teuvo Teravainen, Leon Draisaitl and a 2020 Round 1 pick (Troy Loggins)

Traded Ryan Kesler to Lisbon for Magnus Paajarvi and Emerson Etem

After season started: Signed Troy Brouwer (free agent) but lost Brouwer (waivers), signed Carlo Colaiacovo (free agent)

Season 8

Traded 2021 Round 3 pick (later regained in a trade with Lisbon, but traded to Minsk who used it to pick Lukas Dostal) to Lisbon for Yannik Weber

Traded Ryan Murray to Berlin for Christian Dvorak

Traded 2020 Round 2 pick (Alexis Vanier) to Lisbon for Dion Phaneuf and 2021 Round 3 pick (later traded to Minsk (Lukas Dostal))

Season 9

Traded 2021 Round 2 pick (Joe Veleno) to Helsinki for Cody Eakin

Traded 2022 Round 2 pick to Copenhagen for Brent Burns

Season 10

Traded Jake Allen, Steve Oleksy and 2021 Round 3 pick (Lukas Dostal) to Minsk for Milan Lucic* and Jordan Staal*

Traded Troy Loggins, Mattias Tedenby* and Colton Gillies* to Bratislava for Alexander Ovechkin*, Ryan Suter* and Joakim Nygard