Farm Club: St. Petersburg Dynamo 

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

Coach: Joel Quenneville (formerly Glen Gulutzan)

Last season: 16th overall (did not make playoffs)

Ins and Outs:

(Season 10 to Season 11)

Out: Mitch Marner (trade) Kris Versteeg (free agent), Jyri Marttinen (free agent), Vojtech Nemec (free agent), Jiri Tlusty (free agent), Layne Viveiros (trade), Aaron Dell (free agent)

In: Mikko Lehtonen (trade), Jakub Krejcik (trade), Cole Caufield (draft), Samuel Poulin (draft), Antti Tuomisto (draft)

In Place

(Key players signed past Season 11)

Alexander Salak, G; Nick Leddy, D; Ryan O’Reilly, C: Max Pacioretty, LW; Kyle Palmieri, RW

Three Questions

1. It seems Moscow could still sign some starters, doesn’t it? Yes. Aside from re-signing Max Pacioretty for $7.8 million, General Manager David Reichel basically sat out the free agent frenzy and as a result, he can look over the vast free agent landscape with more than $18 million left on his credit card. Or perhaps trades could bring in some tempting deals, what with Belfast, Lisbon and Paris all sitting above the cap and more than half of the other teams over their owners’ budgets. If Reichel doesn’t make any moves, then Moscow will have 3 forwards and 3 defensemen in the lineup with OV ratings under 70. But just so you know, Halfthor Sigrunarson is just a 63 OV player who last season scored 5 goals in just 13 games for the Dynamo. Still, Moscow missed the playoffs last season by a point. They are close to being a playoff team, their fans know it, and GM Reichel will hear plenty of advice from them in the near future.

2. Where are they set? In goal for sure. Alexander Salak is 30 now and he has proven his worth with five excellent seasons as Moscow’s starter. He had the league’s third-best save percentage (91.3) last season and he is 5th all-time in that column. The Dynamo also has an excellent defenseman in Nick Leddy, who is also 30 now. Last season, Leddy led all EURO defensemen in both blocked shots (127) and takeaways (99). He also led them all in time on ice at 27 minutes per game. Moscow could limit the wear and tear on him with the acquisition of another trustworthy D-man. Halak and Leddy are big reasons Moscow ranked 4th in the league in penalty killig last season. With the re-signing of Pacioretty, Moscow can say they have their top 4 scorers from last season. Ryan O’Reilly, was the best of them all with 73 points including 52 assists. He is also the team’s best penalty killing foward and one of the very best in the league at that skill. Captain David Backes was wonderful for the team last season at age 36 with nearly 200 shots and 28 goals playing just 17 minutes per game. He has only missed 10 games in his career – 5 of them last season – and he is the 10th leading scorer in league history.

3. Where does Moscow need to improve? Their shots per game average has been going down and their shots against average has been going up. Kyle Palmieri is 30 and has never scored more than 25 goals and 58 points. We think a top line RW has to do more. They could also use a defenseman who can relieve Leddy of having to do everything back there. As it stands now, Moscow could use a 3rd-line LW to play behind Pacioretty and Boone Jenner, and it would be tough to relegate Backes to the fourth line after what he did last season but he might be a little below Line 3 standards in this league. Dutch defenseman Killian Van Gorp is the resident policeman with 3 wins in 4 fights last season, but ideally, Moscow would ice a better third pairing than Van Gorp and Bernd Wolf, a 21-year-old Austrian. The two were as tough as they come, but they were -24 as a unit.

History

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

Season 10               16           77       15.6        85.5       27.43      33.11      2.88    3.02    10.89

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 34. Games played 779; Points 840, +27

Season 2: Alexander Salak, G, age 30. GP 391; Save Pct. 90.7

Season 3: Darnell Nurse, D, age 25. GP 334; Pts 69; -44

Season 4: Nikolaj Ehlers, LW, age 24. GP 299; Pts 121; Plus/minus +81

Season 5: Sam Godfrey, D, age 30. GP 61; Pts 15; -10

Season 6: Brock Boeser, RW, age 22. GP 157, Pts 115, +25

Season 7: Olli Juolevi, D, age 22.

Season 8: Cody Glass, C, age 21.

Season 9: Layne Viveiros, D, age 22. GP 148, Pts 40, +2

Season 10: Liam Foudy, C, age 20.

Season 11: Cole Caufield, C/RW, 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

Season 11

Traded Mitch Marner and Layne Viveiros to Belfast for Mikko Lehtonen, Jakub Krejcik and 2024 Round 1 pick