Tridents lineup looks strong

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

Farm club: Malmo (Sweden) Redhawks

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

Coach: Ken Hitchcock (replaced Paul Maurice after Season 9. Maurice replaced Dave Cameron after Season 7; Cameron replaced Paul Maurice after Season 4; Maurice replaced Brent Sutter after Season 3)

Last season: 9th overall; (In playoffs, lost to London)

Ins and Outs (Season 9 to Season 10)

Out: Jeff Carter (free agent), Devin Setoguchi (free agent), Derick Brassard (free agent), Nick Holden (free agent), Ian White (free agent)

In: Dan Girardi (free agent), Joakim Hillding (free agent), Jack Callow (free agent), Brandon Pirri (free agent), K’Andre Miller (draft), Michael DiPietro (draft), Jacob Bernard-Docker (draft),

In Place (Key players signed past Season 10)

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

Three Questions

1. Are Matthews and Gaudreau the next Stamkos and Tavares? Boy, it would be bold to compare Copenhagen’s young superstars to the top 2 players in league history. But if you judge them strictly on point production, then Matthews should be in the conversation since he has averaged 75 points in his first two seasons and he’s only 22. Gaudreau, his trusted left wing, helped him get to that production level and the two could be together for a long time in Denmark. Their right wing, Marko Dano doesn’t get an equal share of the headlines, but he has scored 54 and 55 points the last two years while serving as the main back checker on the line. He’s kind of like the designated driver at the party. He can’t stand next to the goalie-shaped keg all night like Matthews and Gaudreau can. The hidden secret we’re about to let out is that Copenhagen is about a lot more than those three forwards. The other three lines – all three of them – will get the job done for sure. The nine members of those lines have OV ratings of 74 of higher and two of them are 79s. Most teams worry that their lower lines will become anchors around the neck. The Tridents didn’t bring an anchor along on this trip.

2. Is the Copenhagen defense corps any good? Oh yeah. Noah Hanifin, Erik Gustafsson and Jake McCabe are good enough to play on most teams’ bluelines but they aren’t going to crack the Tridents lineup right now All three are wearing Malmo Redhawks sweaters, waiting for a call-up to Copenhagen. Victor Hedman and Dalton Prout are the big strong guys you need pushing bodies around in front of the net, Dougie Hamilton (47 points in Season 9) and Slava Voynov are smooth skaters and puck movers, and Seth Jones has all the physical tools and plays a well-rounded game. Dan Girardi might be the sixth-best player back there and he offers a ton of experience, leadership and defensive knowledge. Girardi played 17 minutes per game with Geneva last season and did well, but he is 36 now, so Coach Ken Hitchcock might want to keep a close eye on him. Hanifin, because he can freely move up and down between Copenhagen and Malmo without being exposed to waivers, will fill in when there are injuries and he has good puck skills.

3. Any team stats jump out at you? Copenhagen has been pretty consistent in its team statistics over the last few seasons but there were two that changed noticeably last year – one for the good and another for the not so good. The Tridents’ 86.1 penalty killing percentage was the best in the league in Season 9 and the EURO’s second best over the last three EURO seasons. We’re going to give credit for that mainly to four forwards: Dano, Brandon Dubinsky, Cedric Paquette and J-G Pageau. Sure the defensemen and goalies helped too, but the fact the team’s goals against average rose much more than its shots against average did last year indicates the goaltending could have been better. Mexican starter Andres De La Garma held his own with a good record and a 90 percent save percentage, but veteran Henrik Lundquist wasn’t good and GM Martin Sayle sent him packing in trade to Minsk. Unfortunately, the guy who took his place, Petr Mrazek, was no better. He didn’t win a game. If Mrazek doesn’t get better soon, or if they don’t find a better backup goalie, then Copenhagen isn’t going to rise in the standings.

History

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

Season 8 9 96 18.1 86.1 31.29 28.79 3.40 3.30 8.79

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 41. Games played: 380; Save Pct. 90.0 (retired)

Season 2: Kevin Dallman, D, age 33. GP 626, Pts 306, -52

Season 3: Nikita Zadorov, D, age 24. GP 347, Pts 102, -57

Season 4: Nick Holden, D, age 32. GP 458, Points 151, -24

Season 5: Simon Hjalmarsson, C, age 27. GP 304, Pts 91, +7

Season 6: Johnny Gaudreau, LW, age 25. GP 325, Points 249, -122

Season 7: Auston Matthews, C, age 22. GP 166, Points 151, -36

Season 8: Gabe Vilardi, C, age 19.

Season 9: Eemeli Rasanen, D, age 20.

Season 10: K’Andre Miller, D, age 18.

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)