Team owner: Schweizerische Bundesbahnen (Swiss Federal Railways – SBB) CEO is Andreas Meyer.

Farm Club: EHC Vaduz (Lichtenstein) 

GM:  Paja Jansson (6th GM in team’s history)

Coach: Doug Weight (replaced Mike Babcock after Season 9)

Last season: 24th overall, out of the playoffs

Ins and Outs (Season 9 to Season 10)

Out: Wayne Simmonds (free agent), Cam Atkinson (free agent), Kevin Shattenkirk (free agent), T.J. Brodie (free agent), Ryan Spooner (waivers), Lance Bouma (free agent), Olli Malmivaara (free agent), Lawson Crouse (waivers), Kjetil Martinsen (waivers)

In: Patrick Kane (free agent), Derek Stepan (free agent), Ossi Vaananen (free agent), Keith Yandle (free agent), Dmitry Kulikov (waivers), Mats Zuccarello (free agent), Peter Mueller (free agent), Brian Elliott (free agent), Kevin Bozon (free agent), Rasmus Dahlin (draft), Martin Kaut (draft), Scott Perunovich (draft)

In Place (Key players signed past Season 10)

Patrick Kane, RW; Derek Stepan, C; Sebastien Aho, RW; Mark Stone, RW; Nico Hischier, C; Mika Zibanejad, C

Three Questions

1. How does Bern go up in the Standings? Interrail fans are counting on the fact that for the last five years, Bern has had picks in the top 7 of the draft. They also know they struck gold with a prospect gamble picked at #27 of the Season 6 draft – Sebastien Aho. The young nucleus of this team consists of forwards Aho, Mark Stone (#1 overall in Season 6) and Nico Hischier (#2), goalie Joonas Korpisalo (#5), and defensemen Rasmus Dahlin (#2) and Roger Karrer (#7). Korpisalo is young, but he’s learning fast. He has to because he was thrust into the starting role as soon as he joined the team. Last year, when he got into 71 games, he seemed overworked. His goals against average went up and his save percentage went down. Veteran Brian Elliott was hired this season to start, but Korpisalo is the goalie of the future. Karrer, meanwhile seems to be a fantastic pick. The 20-year-old Swiss man skates smoothly and he fit right into the EURO League lineup as a rookie, blocking 80 shots, scoring 28 points and putting together a nice +11 turnover ratio. Dahlin and Hischier have undeniable potential and talent and Stone has doubled his point production since his rookie season and was a 30-goal scorer last year. If a team wants to improve, Bern’s six-man nucleus seems a perfect place to start.

2. Did they let a lot of talent walk out the door? General Manager Paja Jansson sent a crystal clear message to everyone willing to listen. If it’s not going well, he’s going to change things. Even promising young forwards Lawson Crouse and Kjetil Martinsen, who got into only 11 and 2 games, respectively, last season were unceremoniously booted from the team. This was a purge. Wayne Simmonds, Cam Atkinson, Kevin Shattenkirk and T.J. Brodie were on the team last year but they aren’t anymore. Those are four good players and Shattenkirk did some especially good work in Bern that we’ll discuss shortly. So for a while, Bern seemed to be on their way from 24th place last year to 24th place this year. Then Jansson went into Turbo Mega Beast Negotiator Mode for the free agent frenzy. Patrick Kane? The new Interrail star right wing. Derek Stepan? The new Interrail star center. Defensemen Ossi Vaananen comes into town with his skate blades still dripping with Cup Finals ice, and Keith Yandle and Dmitry Kulikov tried to rush through the Bern front door at the same time and got stuck like it was the old slapstick gag. Brian Elliott, Mats Zuccarello and Peter Mueller are now with the Interrail and Rasmus Dahlin will join in two-and-a-half months. Yes, a lot of talent went out the door, but a greater amount came in right afterward.

3. What else positive is there to point to? The Interrail got much better offensively last season, perhaps due to increased ice time for Aho and Hischier. They scored 3.02 goals per game, marking the first time since Season 4 that Bern was over 3 goals per game. And their powerplay efficiency was 18.6 percent (8th in the league), which was higher than every season since Season 1, when the team set a EURO record of 25.2 percent PP efficiency. Credit Kevin Shattenkirk, a free agent signing from London last season, for quarterbacking the team’s PP. St. Petersburg isn’t going to let Shattenkirk play on the Bern powerplay any more since he’s a Krassnaya Zvezda, so new Coach Doug Weight will have to go with someone else. Keith Yandle, in whom doctors will later discover a dominant powerplay gene, gets the job and he will have Kane, Stepan, James Van Riemsdyk and Kulikov with him … so they’re OK. And if those guys are too tired, Mika Zibanejad, Mats Zuccarello and Mark Stone will hop over the boards.

History

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

Season 9             24        56       18.6      80.3    27.35    31.32   3.02 4.00    10.74

Season 8             19       72        13.2      75.3    27.62    30.11   2.62   3.55   9.29

Season 7             24        62        12.8      80.1    27.77    32.23   2.67   3.56    10.20

Season 6             21        71        13.1     87.0       24.45   31.77     2.40    3.16     9.99

Season 5             22        59       13.2     81.3     26.00    32.29    2.45    3.46    10.66

Season 4             10         94        17.6     82.1      30.71    30.34      3.24    3.12   11.48

Season 3             14         86        18.0     82.6      29.88    30.78       3.2    3.37    11.43

Season 2              11        93        17.9     83.3      30.96    29.66       3.32    3.04    10.09

Season 1             2           119        25.2    83.1      31.87    28.82       3.88    2.73    7.52

Top Draft picks

Season 1: Claude Giroux, RW, currently age 32. GP 716, Pts 846, -57

Season 2: Scott Glennie, C, age 28.

Season 3: Dalton Prout, D, age 29. GP 378, Pts 94, +41

Season 4: Cam Talbot, G, age 32. GP 197, Save pct. 90.3

Season 5: Kjetil Martinsen, RW, age 26. GP 164, Points 27, -6

Season 6: Mark Stone, RW, age 26. GP 326, Points 210, -141

Season 7: Joonas Korpisalo, G, age 24. GP 188, Save Pct. 87.8

Season 8: Nico Hischier, C, age 19. GP 82, Pts 55, -16

Season 9: Roger Karrer, D, age 20. GP 82, Pts 28, -27

Season 10: Rasmus Dahlin, D, age 18.

Trade History

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

Traded Round 8 pick (used to draft Martin Erat) 2013 Round 1 (Weiyang Zhang) and 2013 Round 2 pick (Leonardo Genoni) to Bratislava for  Round 5 pick (used to draft Kimo Timonen)

Traded Claude Giroux to Frankfurt for Rd 3 pick (Brent Seabrook) and Rd 4 pick (Jason Spezza)

Traded Rd 2 pick (Derek Stepan) to Edinburgh for Rd 3 pick (Daniel Sedin) and Rd 5  pick (Ray Whitney)

Traded Daniel Sedin and Rd 12 pick (Max Talbot) to Oslo for Rd 4 pick (Radim Vrbata) and Rd 6  pick (Johan Franzen)

Traded Rd 10 pick (Devan Dubnyk) to Belfast for Rd 12 pick (Sami Salo)and Rd 24 pick (Douglas Murray)

Traded Rd 14 pick (Matt Cullen), Rd 25 pick (Daniel Paille) and 2013 Rd 3 pick (Nathan Beaulieu) to Minsk for Rd 12 pick (Dan Winnick)

Traded Rd 13 pick (Dmitri Orlov), Rd 19 pick (Carlo Colaiacovo) and 2014 Rd 1 pick (Jake Muzzin) to Paris for Adrian Aucoin

Traded Dan Winnick to Edinburgh for Rd 15 pick (Evgeny Kuznetsov)

Traded Rd 20 pick (Brandon Prust) and Rd 22 pick (Mark Visentin) to Madrid for Sammi Pahlsson

Traded Nicklas Backstrom (goalie) to Geneva for 2013 Rd 3 pick (Scott Glennie), 2014 Rd 3 pick (Tommy Wingels) and $1.5 million

Season 2 – None

Season 3 – None

Traded 2017 Round 3 pick (later traded to Lisbon and used to pick Henrik Borgstrom) to Minsk for Jon Merrill

Traded Dalton Prout and Mike Cammalleri to Stockholm for Shane Doan, Anton Babchuk and Corey Potter

Season 4

Season 5

Traded Cam Talbot to Belfast for 2017 Round 1 pick (Lawson Crouse)

After the start of Season 5

Signed Fredrik Norrena (free agent)

Traded Evgeny Kuznetsov and Mats Rosselli Olsen to Lisbon for Joe Thornton

Signed Matt Halischuk (free agent)

Traded 2018 Round 3 pick (later traded to Lisbon and used to pick Evgeny Svechnikov) to Copenhagen for Thomas Greiss

Season 6

Traded 2018 Round 2 pick (later traded to London and used to pick Joonas Donskoi) to Berlin for 2018 Round 2 pick (Tyler Benson) and Brian Flynn

Season 7 

After season started: signed Jared Boll (free agent), signed Luke Gazdic (free agent); bought out contracts for Johnny Boychuk and Matt Hunwick; claimed Ryan Spooner (waivers), claimed Radek Faksa (waivers)

Season 8

Claimed Shea Weber (waivers)

Traded Shea Weber to Berlin for 2020 Round 3 pick (later traded to Copenhagen (Luke Martin))

Traded 2020 Round 3 pick (Nikita Voles) and 2020 Round 3 pick (Luke Martin) to Copenhagen for 2020 Round 2 pick (Max Comtois)

Season 9

Traded Jamie McBain to Zurich for Charlie Coyle and Mark Pysyk

Traded Dmitry Orlov to St. Petersburg for Cam Atkinson and Darnell Nurse

Season 10