Season 11: Lisbon HC

Owner: Sara Sampaio, Portuguese super model

Farm Club – HC Porto (Portugal)

GM: Bryan Camara (4th GM in team’s history)

Coach: Willie Desjardins (Replaced Peter Laviolette after Season 4; Laviollette replaced Todd McLellan after Season 3)

Last season: 7th overall (In playoffs, lost to Madrid)

Ins and Outs (Season 10 to Season 11)

Out: Jared Spurgeon (free agent), Niklas Danielsson (free agent), Talgat Zhailauov (waivers), Luke Adam (free agent), Ryan Suter (free agent), Jason Spezza (free agent), Alex Goligoski (free agent), Marc Staal (free agent), Matt Martin (free agent), Michal Jordan (free agent)

In: Christoph Korner (waivers), Benedikt Bruckner (waivers), Connor Carrick (free agent), Stephen Johns (free agent), Trevor Zegras (draft), Peyton Krebs (draft), Brayden Tracey (draft), Ryan Johnson (draft)

In Place (Key players signed past Season 11)

John Tavares, C; Steven Stamkos, RW; Drew Doughty, D; Max Domi, LW; Karri Ramo, G

Three Questions

1. How was last season for Lisbon? It was great. Until the playoffs. That’s when Lisbon’s Iberian Peninsula rival Madrid ousted them in 7 games. That hurt. Before the playoffs, Lisbon had its third-best season ever and they showed they could bounce back from what, for them, was a disappointing Season 9, when they also suffered a first-round defeat (to Geneva). That ending also hurt. The year before that, Lisbon lost in overtime of Game 7 of the Conference Finals when Milan Gulas scored to send Bratislava to the Finals. That really, really hurt. And the year before that, Lisbon made it all the way to the Cup Finals before getting beaten by Belfast. Stars John Tavares and Steven Stamkos and the rest of them came extremely close to holding up the Cup that season and the next three finishes were successively more disappointing. Three of the team leaders are 31 and 32 years old this season and all of Lisbon H.C. probably know that they only have a few more kicks at the can and that they must become clutch players who can finish the job once and for all.

2. Are Tavares and Stamkos still first line players? Without a doubt. They are probably still all-stars. The league’s only 1,000-point scorers are only 31 years old, so they have plenty of fuel in the tank. But you know they are great and that Lisbon depends on them, so let’s talk about some other important parts of this team. Kari Ramo has been the main goalie in Portugal for the last 8 seasons and he will be again. If he records 2 shutouts, he will move ahead of two retired goalies and into 10th place all time. On defense, Coach Willie Desjardins has 3 high-level defensemen, but not 4. The coach will have to be at his best to find the optimal minutes for Drew Doughty, Jonas Holos and Sami Vatanen. Desjardins would love to have Jared Spurgeon back for a 10th season in a Lisbon sweater, but the salary cap won’t allow that. Max Domi signed a long-term contract with the team and he again gets the dream job of playing on a line with Stamkos and Tavares. Last year, Domi scored 72 points, which was nearly 30 points over his previous best season. Heretofore fourth-liner Thomas Spelling gets promoted to the second line with Cody Eakin and Jonathan Drouin and the coach wants to see Spelling put his keen Danish shot to work often now that he has two excellent passers on his line.

3. What could trip up Lisbon? The team has 8 players in the starting lineup who get paid a total of $59.1 million. That doesn’t leave a lot for the 12 other guys. General Manager Bryan Camara has filled with inexpensive players, and if too many are on the ice at the same time, well that’s an opportunity for the other team. Hayden Hawkey has been the backup for 6 seasons, compiling a 40-37 regulation time record but he has an experience rating of just 53. There’s a Websim glitch. Lisbon will need Hawkey to have a winning record. On defense, there is a worry. Inexperienced Christopher Korner, Benedikt Bruckner and Connor Carrick start the season as full-timers. Korner and Bruckner, both Germans, both played in Madrid last year. Mat Barzal leads the bottom 6 forwards and they will form two lines that might stuggle. As has been the case for several years, Lisbon will need Tavares and Stamkos to be “on” just about all the time.

History

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

Season 10 7 104 19.6 81.1 30.89 27.55 3.59 3.40 8.96

Season 9 11 94 15.9 82.8 29.34 28.82 3.34 2.98 8.37

Season 8 5 108 21.7 85.7 32.34 27.56 3.73 2.91 10.32

Season 7 8 99 18.5 83.5 30.83 28.18 3.74 2.99 8.18

Season 6 15 86 16.1 81.6 29.99 27.80 3.11 3.16 9.76

Season 5 5 108 23.0 82.9 31.28 27.27 3.91 3.20 8.23

Season 4 14 82 18.5 77.9 30.63 31.39 3.38 3.73 9.70

Season 3 16 83 20.2 80.9 28.39 31.09 3.41 3.46 11.80

Season 2 21 70 13.0 80.3 27.78 30.67 2.83 3.73 11.83

Season 1 23 57 18.8 76.4 26.76 32.20 3.04 4.38 9.78

Top Draft picks

Season 1: Steven Stamkos, C, current age 31. Games played: 815; points: 1,040; plus-minus +72

Season 2: Karri Ramo, G, age 29. GP: 576; Save Pct. 89.3

Season 3: Seth Jones, D, age 27. GP: 569; points: 169; -5

Season 4: Sami Vatanen, D, age 29. GP: 547; points: 197; +5

Season 5: Nicolas Aube-Kubel, RW, age 22.

Season 6: Adam Lowry, LW, age 26. GP 256, Points 71, +33

Season 7: Frank Vatrano, RW, age 25. GP 238, Points 40, plus-minus +6

Season 8: Lias Andersson, C/LW, age 20.

Season 9: Thomas Spelling, RW, age 25. GP: 163, Points 38, +8

Season 10: Vitali Kravtsov, RW, age 20.

Season 11: Trevor Zegras, C/W, age 18.

Trade History

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

Traded Round 3 pick (used to draft Brent Seabrook) and Round 4 pick (Jason Spezza ) to Bern for Claude Giroux

Traded Round 7 pick (Slava Voynov), Round 10 pick (Trevor Daley) and 2013 Rd 2 pick (Erik Ersberg) to Madrid for Max Pacioretty

Season 2

Traded Josh Gorges to Prague for Jared Spurgeon

Season 3

Traded 2014 Rd 2 pick (traded later) (Hunter Shinkaruk) to Minsk for Jonas Holos

Season 4

Traded Travis Zajac to Helsinki for Kyle Clifford and Gareth Roberts.

Season 5

Traded Max Pacioretty to Moscow for Darnell Nurse, 2016 Round 1 pick (later traded to Copenhagen – Marten Madsen) and 2017 Round 1 pick (Adam Lowry)

Traded 2016 Round 1 pick (Linus Klasen) to Gothenburg for Zach Parise

Traded Dougie Hamilton, Gareth Roberts and 2016 Round 1 pick (Moscow’s, later traded to Bratislava – Marten Madsen) to Copenhagen for Shea Weber

Traded Claude Giroux to Edinburgh for John Tavares

Transactions after the start of Season 5:

Claimed Mike Ribeiro (waivers)

Signed Hayden Hawkey (free agent)

Claimed Jordan Caron (waivers)

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

Traded 2017 Round 3 pick (Melker Karlsson) to Moscow for Aleksey Kalyuzhny

Traded Jacob De La Rose to Copenhagen for Clarke MacArthur

Season 6

Traded Kyle Brodziak and 2018 Round 1 pick (Jaccob Slavin) to Copenhagen for Joe Pavelski and 2018 Round 3 pick (Bern’s originally – Max Jones)

Traded 2017 Round 2 pick (Colin White) to Minsk for 2017 Round 2 pick (Mathew Barzal) and 2017 Round 3 pick (Evgeny Svechnikov)

Traded Adam Lowry to Stockholm for Marcus Foligno

After Season 6 started:

Traded Clarke MacArthur to Dublin for 2018 Round 2 pick (Frank Vatrano)

Claimed Matt Martin on waivers

Season 7

Traded Nick Bjugstad to Milan for Niklas Danielsson

Traded 2020 Round 3 pick (Maxim Sushko) to Belfast for Matt Moulson

Traded Marcus Foligno, Darnell Nurse and 2019 Round 3 pick (Tyler Parsons) to St. Petersburg for Wayne Simmonds and 2019 Round 2 pick (Berlin’s) (later traded and used to pick Filip Hronek)

Traded Emerson Etem and Magnus Paajarvi to Dublin for Ryan Kesler
Traded Matt Martin (later reacquired off waivers) to Dublin for Brendan Perlini

Traded Evgeny Kuznetzov and 2019 Round 2 (Berlin’s) pick (Filip Hronek) to Berlin for 2019 Round 1 pick (Casey Mittelstadt)

Season 8

Traded Damon Severson and 2021 Round 3 pick (Jet Woo) to London for Dion Phaneuf and Michael Grabner

Traded 2019 Round 2 pick (Nikita Zaitsev) to Munich for 2020 Round 2 pick (Isaac Ratcliffe)

Traded Yannik Weber to Dublin for 2021 Round 3 pick (later traded in Vanier deal (Lukas Dostal))

Season 9

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

Traded Seth Jones and 2022 Round 2 pick to Copenhagen for Andre Burakovsky and Jonathan Drouin

Traded Ryan Kesler to Helsinki for 2022 Round 3 pick

Traded 2021 Round 2 pick (Akil Thomas) to Berlin for Talgat Zhailauov

Traded 2022 Round 3 pick to Minsk for Luke Adam

Season 10