Season 11: Geneva Generals

Farm Club: Luxembourg Castles

GM: Andy Rolling (4th GM in team’s history)

Coach: Todd Reirden (replaced Mike Babcock after Season 10) (Babcock replaced Brent Sutter after Season 9) (Sutter replaced Guy Boucher after Season 6, who replaced Darryl Sutter before Season 5, who replaced Joel Quenneville after Season 3)

Last season: 21st overall. (Did not make playoffs)

Ins and Outs (Season 10 to Season 11)

Out: Patrick Wiercioch (free agent), David Perron (free agent), Mike Richards (free agent), Bobby Ryan (free agent), Michael Hutchinson (free agent), Niclas Almari (trade), Riley Sheahan (free agent), Jonathan Marchesseault (free agent)

In: Nathan Horton (free agent), Dave Bolland (free agent), Pavel Zacha (trade), Anthony Cirelli (draft), Jordan Greenway (draft)

In Place (Key players signed past Season 11)

Colton Parayko, D; Nazem Kadri, C: Valeri Nichushkin, RW; Eric Gelinas, D; Victor Rask, C

Three Questions

1. Are the Generals concerned about the big drop last year? Naturally, the Geneva brass isn’t happy with the drop from 4th overall in Season 9 to 21st last season, but it’s a patient management group that in the past has been willing to bide their time, keep a good foundation in place and sift through the free agents in search of a gold nugget. Mike Richards is a great example. Last season, GM Andy Rolling convinced the 35-year-old that Switzerland is cool and the Canadian joined the team and produced a 66-point performance, second-best on the club and one of his best seasons ever. Rolling is hoping for the same type of response from veteran free agent pickups Nathan Horton and Dave Bolland, two vets in their mid-30s who start the season on the third line with well-rounded Canadian Bud Holloway on their left wing. The Generals have always had lineups seasoned with veterans, but they currently have a strong core of 24- to 26-year-olds, as well as younger Anthony Cirelli, their top draft pick who plays a lot older, so look for that group to star for the Generals over the next 5 years.

2. Where are they strongest? Nazem Kadri has been the team’s best player in recent years. He was voted onto the All-Star team 4 times, including the last two seasons. The Canadian is only 31 years old now and he already has four 30-goal seasons on his resume. In Season 9, he was an offensive force for the Generals, totaling 99 points with 32 goals on 297 shots. James Neal and Dylan Larkin give him two dangerous shooters to play with, so grab Kadri early in your fantasy draft. Colton Parayko is right up there with Kadri, although it’s hard to compare the two because Parayko is a defenseman and Kadri is a center. Parayko is big and strong, good all over the ice and has a very high hockey sense. The best news for Geneva fans is that he has signed on with the team for the next three seasons. The Generals have good depth throughout the 18 skaters. There is no bum in Geneva. The defense, even with the departure of Patrick Wiercioch, features three relaible veterans behind Parayko on the depth chart and even the third pairing, while relatively young, has quality in Ben Hutton and Brandon Carlo.

3. Who’s protecting the Geneva goal? Geneva is a very balanced team with a good mix of playing styles and ages. They aren’t particularly strong in one area, nor are they urgently weak in an area. But they do need a top-tier goalie to push them over the hump and right now, they probably don’t have one unless OndreJ Pavelec or young Russian Ivan Nalimov exceed expectations. Generals fans are still stinging from Frederik Andersen’s decision to leave through free agency after Season 9, when he backstopped the team to 4th overall in the league. Pavelec has the uneviable task of trying to make the fans forget Andersen. The 34-year-old’s average save percentage over the last two seasons is 87.3 with a goals against of 3.80 last season as Geneva’s starter. It looks like he will need to improve those numbers if Geneva is going to get into the playoffs.

History

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

Season 10 21 67 14.3 79.1 28.50 30.45 3.18 3.73 9.00

Season 9 4 102 18.3 85.3 29.22 31.41 3.51 3.04 8.43

Season 8 13 87 16.9 83.3 26.72 30.84 2.89 2.90 7.61

Season 7 19 70 15.6 78.3 27.17 31.44 2.90 3.61 8.06

Season 6 17 77 17.5 83.8 27.05 32.67 2.61 3.02 6.61

Season 5 18 80 15.0 85.1 27.22 32.49 2.85 3.28 6.67

Season 4 18 80 15.5 83.4 26.29 32.51 2.72 3.28 9.46

Season 3 17 82 17.1 83.8 29.01 30.28 3.15 3.38 8.83

Season 2 10 96 18.9 82.8 31.94 29.30 3.39 2.99 10.68

Season 1 1 123 21.4 83.6 32.16 27.72 3.99 2.77 8.85

Top Draft picks

Season 1: Kari Lehtonen, G, current age 38. Games played: 439; Save Pct. 89.4

Season 2: none

Season 3: none

Season 4: Frederik Andersen, G, age 31. GP: 411; save pct. 91.1

Season 5: Sergei Mozyakin, C, age 28. GP 470; Pts 388; -52

Season 6: Victor Rask, C, age 26. GP 258; Pts 78; +18

Season 7: Colton Parayko, D, age 26. GP 321, Pts 134, -17

Season 8: Connor Brown, RW, age 25. GP 242, Pts 38, +2

Season 9: Alexei Bereglazon, D, age 20.

Season 10: Ty Dellandrea, C, age 19.

Season 11: Anthony Cirelli, C, age 21.

Trade History

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

Traded Round 15 pick (used to draft Ryan Ellis) , Round 25 pick (Ben Lovejoy) and 2013 Round 1 pick (Jason Krog) to Paris for Dennis Wideman

Traded Round 8 pick (Olli Jokinen), Round 10 pick (Petr Sykora) and 2013 Round 2 pick (Ryan Murray) to Dublin for Round 7 pick (Chris Kunitz), Round 22 pick (Bryan Allen) and $250,000

Traded Round 17 pick (Tomas Kopecky) and 2014 Round 1 pick (Michael Stone) to Bratislava for Round 8 pick (David Desharnais) and Round 19 pick (Greg Zanon)

Traded Round 13 pick (Marcus Kruger) and Round 14 pick (Mark Scheifele) to Athens for Round 9 pick (Nick Foligno)

Traded Alex Chiasson to Minsk for Vernon Fiddler and $1 million

Traded Brian Dumoulin to Minsk for Round 21 pick (Raffi Torres)

Traded Matt D’Agostino, 2014 Round 2 pick (Andrei Loktionov) and $250,000 to Oslo for Justin Williams

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

Season 2

Traded Justin Williams, Ryan Malone and Jeff Woywitka to Prague for Thomas Vanek and Mike Weaver

* seem to missing one trade in this period

Season 3

Traded Michael Del Zotto to Minsk for Valeri Nichushkin, Ilya Nikulin and Sergei Kostitsyn

Season 4

Traded Kari Lehtonen to Edinburgh for Ondrej Pavelec, 2016 Round 1 pick (later traded to Bratislava – Morten Madsen) and 2017 Round 2 pick (Michael Hutchinson)

Season 5

Traded Chris Kunitz and 2016 Round 1 pick (Morten Madsen) to Bratislava for 2016 Round 1 pick (Bud Holloway)

Season 6

After Season 6 started: Traded Sergei Mozyakin to Belfast for Nazem Kadri, Vladislav Kamenev and 2020 Round 1 pick (Niclas Almari)

Signed Chris Butler (free agent)

Season 7

After season started: signed James Reimer (free agent), Andrej Sekera (free agent)

Season 8

Season 9

Season 10

Traded 2021 Round 2 pick (Bode Wilde) to Helsinki for Jack Johnson

2022 Round 3 pick (later traded to Stockholm (Matias Macelli)) to Helsinki for James Neal