Season 11: Copenhagen Tridents

Owner: Tommy Ahlers, founder & CEO of ZYB, a popular social media & networking site in Denmark.

Farm club: Malmo (Sweden) Redhawks

GM: Martin Sayle (2nd GM in team’s history)

Coach: Ken Hitchcock (replaced Paul Maurice after Season 9. Maurice replaced Dave Cameron after Season 7; Cameron replaced Paul Maurice after Season 4; Maurice replaced Brent Sutter after Season 3)

Last season: 4th overall; (In playoffs, defeated Minsk, then Stockholm, then Belfast, then Berlin to win the Cup)

Ins and Outs (Season 10 to Season 11)

Out: Brandon Dubinsky (free agent), Jack Callow (free agent), Petr Mrazek (free agent), Dan Girardi (free agent), Olexander Pobyedonostsev (free agent)

In: Jake McCabe (free agent), Antoine Roussel (free agent), Niklas Svedberg (free agent and then lost on waivers), Casey DeSmith (free agnt), Philip Broberg (draft), Alex Newhook (draft), Jay O’Brien (draft), Mats Sogaard (draft), Nils Hoglander (draft)

In Place (Key players signed past Season 11)

Auston Matthews, C; Johnny Gaudreau, LW; Marko Dano, RW; Victor Hedman, D; Slava Voynov, D

Three Questions

1. How did they win it all? Was it the Matthews and Gaudreau Show? Auston Matthews and Johnny Gaudreau will be stars in the league for years, but their plus/minus ratings were -12 and -10, respectively, last season. The Tridents were more than a few players. They got contributions all up and down the lineup. If any one person deserves the credit it’s General Manager Martin Sayle, who inherited a 23rd-place team in Season 7 and lifted it to 12th in his first season and 4th in his second. A drop to 9th place in Season 9 and a rebound to 4th last season had them with a good seed for the playoffs. They breezed through the first two rounds, and in the Northern Conference finals, Copenhagen was the underdog against the reigning champs, Belfast. It was supposed to be the Tridents’ last stand, but it ended up being far from that. Belfast simply could not keep up with Copenhagen, who scored an average of 5 goals in its four wins. The underdog won in just 5 games. Goals were tougher to come by against Berlin in the Cup Finals, but Copenhagen finished the job in 6 games. The Tridents were so well balanced, not a single player including goalie Andres De La Garma had to feel like it was all on his shoulders. They all shared the burden equally and it was a textbook team effort and a dream season.

2. Will the league salary cap weaken Copenhagen? In a word, yes. But it is also taking its toll on most teams, so the Tridents aren’t losing much ground, if any. Sayle would probably rather have farm team members Josh Bailey, Brandon Pirri and Drew Shore on his forward lines, not Andreas Jamtin and Jared McCann; Dalton Prout on defense, not Nikita Voles; and Andrew Dickson as backup goalie, not Casey DeSmith. But there is a salary cap to stay under. The optimistic fan will say the Tridents will be naturally better this season than they were in Season 10 because there is no old man with declining skills in this lineup. They have two 31-year-old defensemen and two fourth-line forwards over 30, but the remainder of the team is actually short of their career peaks. The pessimistic fan will remind us that the Tridents don’t have Brandon Dubinsky any more. That will be a large – perhaps deciding – loss. Dubinsky centered Copenhagen’s most successful line last season with Cedric Paquette and Jean-Gabriel Pageau on his wings. Vincent Trocheck, 26, will play Dubinsky’s role this season and if he struggles a little, he will feel more pressure than any other Trident.

3. Could they have won without that great defense corps? If you look at the teams that have won the Cup, you will notice a common attribute: four high-quality defensemen. You can go back to Season 1 with Geneva’s group led by Niklas Lidstrom, through Paris (led by Alex Pietrangelo), Moscow (Andrei Markov) and the great Minsk and Belfast teams with names like Subban, Ekman-Larsson, Del Zotto and Chudinov. The Tridents won with Slava Voynov, Dougie Hamilton, Victor Hedman and Seth Jones last year and guess what? They will all be back this season, and they are bringing their 81 and higher OV ratings with them. Each of the four brings a slightly different style, but they all have top shelf finesse, hockey sense and stamina. Voynov and Hamilton started this season on the top pairing. Last year, when they occupied that role, they each scored 47 points and were +31 together.

History

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

Season 10 4 (Cup) 111 20.4 81.9 33.21 26.83 3.74 2.71 8.79

Season 9 9 96 18.1 86.1 31.29 28.79 3.40 3.30 8.74

Season 8 4 109 17.7 83.9 34.22 28.15 3.48 2.80 8.84

Season 7 12 89 18.1 83.2 30.84 28.57 3.15 3.30 9.18

Season 6 23 55 16.9 77.6 28.29 31.46 2.60 3.95 8.02

Season 5 20 63 12.7 80.5 29.33 29.51 2.80 3.76 9.88

Season 4 12 90 21.0 85.2 33.11 27.41 3.30 3.00 10.23

Season 3 2 111 22.4 83.3 32.24 28.66 3.95 2.99 9.90

Season 2 1 114 18.2 86.3 33.13 27.65 3.72 2.59 8.89

Season 1 4 108 19.9 86.3 32.10 29.05 3.66 2.76 9.57

Top Draft picks

Season 1: Roberto Luongo, G, current age 42. Games played: 380; Save Pct. 90.0 (retired)

Season 2: Kevin Dallman, D, age 34. GP 703, Pts 347, -74

Season 3: Nikita Zadorov, D, age 25. GP 384, Pts 111, -67

Season 4: Nick Holden, D, age 33. GP 526, Points 169, -38

Season 5: Simon Hjalmarsson, C, age 28. GP 386, Pts 165, +34

Season 6: Johnny Gaudreau, LW, age 26. GP 407, Points 317, -132

Season 7: Auston Matthews, C, age 23. GP 247, Points 226, -48

Season 8: Gabe Vilardi, C, age 20.

Season 9: Eemeli Rasanen, D, age 21.

Season 10: K’Andre Miller, D, age 19.

Season 11: Philip Broberg, D, age 18.

Trade History

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

Traded Round 3 pick (used to draft Jimmy Howard) to Oslo for Round 5 pick (used to draft Andrew Ladd) and Round 7 pick (Alex Goligoski)

Traded Round 5 pick (Paul Stastny) and Round 12 pick (Marc Staal) to Helsinki for Round 4 pick (Stephen Weiss)

Traded Alexandre Burrows to Oslo for Round 8 pick (Andrej Meszaros) and Round 12 pick (Boyd Gordon)

Season 2

Traded Jonas Hiller and Darrell Powe to Stockholm for Mark Giordano and Matthieu Garon

Traded Andrew Ladd, Brandon Sutter and Kevin Dallman to Moscow for Alexander Ovechkin and Dave Bolland

Traded 2014 Round 1 pick (Jake Allen) to Dublin for Tomas Fleischmann

Season 3

Traded Dave Bolland and Dany Heatley to Munich for Brooks Laich and Tomas Zaborsky

Traded 2015 Round 2 pick (Julius Honka) to Minsk for Andres De La Garma

Traded Kevin Shattenkirk, Teddy Purcell and Carl Gunnarsson to London for Shea Weber

Season 4

Traded Roberto Luongo to Zurich for Brian Elliott

Traded Colin Greening to Stockholm for T.J. Brodie

Traded Mark Giodano, Nikita Zadorov, Charlie Coyle and 2016 Round 1 pick to Munich for Dion Phaneuf

Season 5

Traded 2016 Round 2 pick (Reto Suri) to Madrid for Andrew Cogliano

Traded 2016 Round 3 pick (Michael Keranen) to Zurich for Martin Thornberg

Traded Shea Weber to Lisbon for Dougie Hamilton, Gareth Roberts and 2016 Round 1 pick (Morten Madsen)

Traded Andrej Meszaros to Madrid for Marko Dano and 2017 Round 2 pick (Ilya Samsonov)

Traded Dion Phaneuf to Berlin for Slava Voynov, Martin Erat and 2017 Round 3 pick (Linden Vey)

Traded Alexander Ovechkin to Belfast for Joe Pavelski, Jonathan Drouin and 2016 Round 1 pick (Ville Vahalahti)

Traded Martin Thornberg to Edinburgh for 2018 Round 2 pick (later traded to Paris- Radek Faksa)

Traded Matt Frattin and 2016 Round 1 pick (Morten Madsen) to Bratislava for 2017 Round 1 pick (Simon Hjalmarsson)

Traded Alex Goligoski to Athens for Brooks Orpik, Bryan Bickel and 2017 Round 1 pick (Ivan Provorov)

Traded Brian Elliott to Dublin for Tim Thomas and 2017 Round 1 pick (Noah Hanifin)

Traded Troy Brouwer to Bratislava for a 2017 Round 2 pick (Daniel Sprong)

After the start of Season 5

Traded Brooks Laich, Andrew Cogliano and Nick Holden to Madrid for Brian Campbell and 2017 Round 1 pick (Jean-Gabriel Pageau)

Traded Thomas Greiss to Bern for 2018 Round 3 pick (later traded to Lisbon – Max Jones)

Lost Bryan Bickell (waivers)

Traded Brian Campbell and 2018 Round 3 pick (Phil Di Giuseppe) to Milan for Jonathan Blum

Claimed Benoit Pouliot (waivers)

Claimed Clarke MacArthur (waivers)

Traded Angelo Nigro (formerly Chris Legge) to Gothenburg for 2019 Round 3 pick

Claimed Chris Kunitz (waivers)

Claimed Steve Ott (waivers)

Traded Nathan Gerbe and 2017 Round 2 pick (Ilya Samsonov) to Paris for Andre Burakovsky

Traded T.J. Brodie and Gareth Roberts to Munich for David Bolland and 2017 Round 2 pick (Petr Mrazek)

Traded Clarke MacArthur to Lisbon for Jacob De La Rose

Season 6

Traded 2017 Round 1 pick (Ivan Provorov) to Paris for Jared McCann

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

Traded Steve Chalmers, 2017 Round 2 pick (Daniel Sprong) and 2017 Round 3 pick (Linden Vey) to Stockholm for Jeff Carter

Traded Dave Bolland, Martin Erat, Benoit Pouliot and 2018 Round 2 pick (originally Edinburgh’s – Radek Faksa) to Paris for 2018 Round 1 pick (Jake McCabe), Craig Paquette, Jordan Caron and Colton Gillies.

Traded Dennis Rasmussen to Belfast for Mathieu Perreault

After Season 6 started: Traded Nathan Gerbe and Colin Greening to Madrid for Jonas Hiller, Lee Stempniak, Daniel Winnik and 2018 Madrid Round 1 pick (Michael McLeod).

Bought out Chris Kunitz and Daniel Winnik.

Lost Ben Smith (waivers)

Signed Damien Brunner (free agent)

Season 7

Traded Josh Holden and 2018 Round 2 pick (Brett Pesce) to Edinburgh for Brandon Dubinsky

After season started: traded Ilya Nikulin and Lars Eller to Stockholm for Dalton Prout and Tomas Jurco

lost Damien Brunner (waivers)

Season 8

Traded Kyle Brodziak and 2020 Round 3 pick (reacquired in a trade) (Luke Martin) to Berlin for Jeff Carter

Traded Jaccob Slavin to Belfast for Victor Hedman

Traded 2020 Round 2 pick (Maxime Comtois) to Bern to 2020 Round 3 pick (Nikita Voles) and 2020 Round 3 pick (Luke Martin)

Claimed Ryan Wilson (waivers)