Farm club: Tampere (Finland) Tappara
GM: Jukka Tuominen (4th GM in team’s history)
Coach: Brent Sutter (replaced Doug Weight after Season 9) (Weight replaced Barry Trotz after Season 7)
Last season: 9th overall; In playoffs, lost to London in Round 1.
Ins and Outs
(Season 10 to Season 11)
Out: Ben Bishop (free agent), Patrik Berglund (free agent), Andrew Ladd (free agent), Marc-Eduoard Vlasic (free agent), Ondrej Roman (free agent), Eric Staal (free agent)
In: Carey Price (trade), Phil Kessel (free agent), Martin Hanzal (free agent), Reilly Smith (free agent), Austin Wagner (free agent), Devon Toews (free agent), Slater Koekkoek (free agent), Juho Lammikko (free agent), Ville Heinola (draft), Cameron York (draft), Jakob Pelletier (draft)
In Place
(Key players signed past Season 11)
Carey Price, G; Brock Boeser, RW; Alex Debrincat, RW; Kyle Connor, LW; Matt Dumba, D; Nerius Alisauskas, D
Three Questions
1. Did the Jokerit add any big names in the off season? General Manager Jukka Tuominen was a busy boy leading up to Season 11. He signed seven free agents, and early in the proceedings, he traded his way to a new goalie to replace Ben Bishop. Big Ben had rarely been a starter in the EURO League and was on his 5th team in his career and his 4th team in the last 4 seasons. His 88.8 save percentage last season was porous enough to convince Tuominen to say goodbye to him. Tuominen went to Switzerland and was able to swing a deal with Zurich to acquire Carey Price. The 34-year-old put in two seasons for the Lions after eight good years with Minsk, a time in which he collected a Best Goalie trophy and two EURO Cups. Price still can play well. He had a 90.3 save percentage in 55 games last year. During Henrik Lundquist’s glory days, Helsinki always had a low goals against average. In recent years, that average ballooned a bit and Bishop actually brought it down to 3.10, but the thinking is Price will bring it down even more.
2. How is the defense corps? The Jokerit’s blueline is a mix of speed and strength; youth and experience. Overall, it looks like a very deep unit. In fact, Mathew Dumba, an 80 OV player and a good all-around player, is penciled in on the third pairing with youngster Henri Jokiharju. The best defensive defensemen on the squad are Nerius Alisauskas and Jared Cowen, but they also take a lot of penalties, which makes penalty killing that much harder for Helsinki. Jake Gardiner can fly still at age 31 and he has the league experience – along with Alisauskas and Cowen – that Helsinki really needs. Helsinki fans are excited at the prospect of Jokiharju and first-round draft pick Ville Heinola someday forming a Finnish duo back there, but in the meantime, helping Carey Price – especially while the opponents are on the power play – is the top priority.
3. Who will be the leader up front? Last season, Alexander Radulov led the team in scoring with 84 points and three others were right behind him, all tied with 80 points. Helsinki is set up to throw three scary lines at you this year. It looks like Radulov and Brock Boeser will try to form a partnership with big Martin Hanzal as their center; while Niklas Backstrom, Brendan Gallagher and newcomer Phil Kessel will likely get around 700 shots together on the top line. The Jokerit will also have a very good third line with Sam Bennett between speedy Alex Debrincat and Kyle Connor. Helsinki’s forwards are generally quick and great with the puck, but they’re also small guys who tend to get beaten along the boards and pushed around by bigger, stronger players. The acquistion of the 6-6, 230-pound Hanzal seems like a good move. But it’s the signing of Kessel that could be the move of the year for Tuominen. Kessel has twice scored more than 40 goals in a season and three times, he managed more than 90 points. But that was a long time ago. He’s 34 now and his body might let him down at some point during the season, but Kessel and Backstrom will manufacture some eye-catching beauty in the opponent’s zone while Gallagher is distracting everyone in front of the net. That trio could be a dynamite combination of high-speed skill and tenacity.
History
Season Place PTS PP % PK % SPG SAPG GPG GAPG PIM
Season 10 9 97 19.1 84.4 33.72 26.50 3.80 3.10 9.38
Season 9 6 100 17.5 81.1 31.73 28.33 3.95 3.41 10.56
Season 8 14 85 20.3 80.5 31.82 28.95 3.50 3.68 12.96
Season 7 9 97 16.4 84.1 31.87 28.38 3.27 2.91 14.34
Season 6 9 91 14.6 85.7 29.96 29.48 3.18 2.98 12.87
Season 5 8 99 20.4 81.3 30.41 30.80 3.22 3.00 12.54
Season 4 13 83 18.8 83.3 29.43 32.65 2.96 3.13 13.60
Season 3 9 91 17.9 87.3 29.17 32.76 2.90 2.91 15.88
Season 2 14 89 17.5 82.9 30.43 31.93 3.01 2.99 14.48
Season 1 17 84 21.7 80.8 30.01 33.09 3.15 3.49 9.63
Top Draft picks
Season 1: John Tavares, C, current age 31. Games played: 813; points: 1,069; +39
Season 2: Nerius Alisauskas, D, age 27. GP 705; Pts 311; +97
Season 3: Cody Eakin, C, age 29, GP 580; Pts 250; +35
Season 4: Sam Bennett, C, age 24. GP 151, Pts 54, +13
Season 5: Adrian Kempe, LW, age 23. GP 8; Pts 0; -2
Season 6: Mitch Marner, C, age 23. GP 228; Pts 124; 0 plus/minus rating
Season 7: Tyler Jost, C/LW, age 21. GP 10; Pts 3; +2
Season 8: Ryan Hartman, LW, age 25. GP 87; Pts 14; -4
Season 9: Henri Jokiharju, D, age 20. GP 29; Pts 6; +4
Season 10: Jesperi Kotkaniemi, C, age 19. GP 32; Pts 10; +5
Season 11: Ville Heinola, D, age 18.
Trade History
Season 1 (picks without years listed are from initial draft)
Traded Round 4 pick (used to draft Stephen Weiss) to Copenhagen for Round 5 pick (used to draft Paul Stastny) and Round 12 pick (Marc Staal)
Traded John Tavares, Ilya Bryzgalov, 2013 Round 2 pick (Jakub Kovar) and $5 million to Edinburgh for Henrik Lundqvist
Traded Jamie McGinn to Milan for Nik Antropov, 2013 Round 2 pick (traded later) (Olexander Podbyedonostsev) and 2013 Round 3 pick (Matthew Dumba)
Traded Jakub Silfverberg and 2013 Round 2 pick (Olexander Podbyedonostsev) to Dublin for Boone Jenner
Season 2
Traded Alexander Burmistrov to Minsk for Brayden Scheen and Kyle Clifford
Traded Martin St. Louis and 2015 Round 3 (Jakub Vrana) to St. Petersburg for Jarome Iginla
*Colton Gillies was once Helsinki property but is with Paris now. Not sure if trade was involved.
Sorry Trevor, I seem to be missing some trades from this period.
Season 3
Traded Nick Spaling to Minsk for 2015 Round 3 pick (Brandon Montour)
Traded Sven Baertschi to Minsk for 2014 Rd 2 pick (Hunter Shinkaruk)
Season 4
Traded Kyle Clifford and Gareth Roberts to Frankfurt for Travis Zajac
Season 5
Traded Jacob Trouba to Zurich for Alexander Radulov
Traded Wojtek Wolski to Oslo for 2016 Round 3 pick (later traded to Stockholm-Ryan Gunderson)
Traded 2016 Round 1 (Later traded to Gothenburg – Olli Palola) pick to Moscow for Nicolas Ehlers
Traded 2016 Round 2 pick (Connor Bleackley) and 2016 Round 3 pick (Ryan Gunderson) to Stockholm for Nikita Scherbak
Signed Stanislav Galimov (free agent)
Signed Peter Budaj (free agent)
Signed Patryk Wajda (free agent)
Signed Marc-Andre Bergeron (free agent)
Season 6
Traded 2017 Round 3 pick (Johan Larsson) to Stockholm for Pavel Datsyuk
Traded Derek Roy and Carlo Colaiacovo to Madrid for Nick Holden
After Season 6 started:
Traded Mitch Marner to Moscow for Brock Boeser
Season 8
Traded Eliezer Sherbatov to Berlin for Alex Debrincat
Season 9
Traded Brayden Schenn and Nikolaj Ehlers to Stockholm for Brendan Gallagher
Traded 2022 Round 3 pick (traded later to Minsk (Kirill Marchenko)) to Lisbon for Ryan Kesler
Traded Cody Eakin to Dublin for 2021 Round 2 pick (Joe Veleno)
Season 10
Traded Boone Jenner and a 2021 Round 3 pick to Moscow for 2021 Round 1 pick (later traded to Stockholm (Ryan Merkley))
Traded Jack Johnson to Geneva for 2021 Round 2 pick (Bode Wilde)
Traded 2021 Round 1 pick (from Moscow) (Ryan Merkley) and 2021 Round 2 pick (Veini Vehvilainen) to Stockholm for 2021 Round 1 pick (Jesperi Kotkaniemi)
Traded James Neal to Geneva for 2022 Round 3 pick (later traded to Stockholm (Matias Macceli))
Season 10
Traded Ryan Hartman to Berlin for Filip Chytil
Traded Blake Wheeler, Kyle Okposo, Filip Chytil, Adrien Kempe, a 2022 Round 3 pick (Geneva’s, Matias Macceli) and a 2023 Round 3 pick to Stockholm for Aleksi Heponiemi, Andrew Ladd, Michael Grabner, a 2022 Round 1 pick (later traded to Zurich (Oskar Lindblom)) and 2023 Round 2 pick
Traded 2022 Round 1 pick (Oskar Lindblom) to Zurich for Carey Price and 2022 Round 2 pick (Cam York)
