Owner: Jim Balsillie, Canadian businessman
Farm Club: Monaco Gamblers
GM: Stephen R (4th GM in team’s history)
Coach: John Tortorella
Last season: 12th overall. (In playoffs, lost to Bratislava)
Ins and Outs (Season 11 to Season 12)
Out: Anze Kopitar (free agent), Thomas Powell (free agent), Brad Marchand (free agent), Erik Johnson (free agent), Steve Downie (free agent), Jori Lehtera (free agent)
In: Derek Forbort (free agent), Marcus Kruger (free agent), Teddy Blueger (free agent),
In Place (Key players signed past Season 12)
Logan Couture, C; Justin Schultz, D; Esa Lindell, D; Petr Mrazek, G; Gareth Roberts, RW
Three Questions
1. Will Athens’ ‘Bottom 6’ forwards be easy to play against? The lineup that the Gods have penciled in for the start of the season features an eye-popper. We’ve never seen a fourth-line center with an 82 OV rating until now. Marcus Foligno will only play 5-8 minutes or so per game at 5-vs-5, but he will penalty kill too. Last season, Foligno played 10 minutes per game and was +17 with an impressive +27 turnover ratio. Marcus Kruger was signed after Anze Kopitar left the team, and he will center the third line but it’s possible he and Foligno will be flip-flopped throughout the season. The Gods have good depth through 3 lines and physical wingers Gareth Roberts and Danis Zaripov – as well as speedy Arturri Lehkonen – should be able to surprise teams with quality from the third and fourth lines.
2. Can Mrazek take them deep into the playoffs? Petr Mrazek is 28 and has one season as a starting goalie on his resume. That was last season when he played 69 games for the Gods and posted a 3.08 goals against average and an 88.4 save percentage. Those are middle-of-the-road averages and that’s OK if the lineup in front of the goalie is exceptional. Athens was 5th in the league in goal scoring last season, so they have the lineup to get them into the playoffs. Make that “had.” This season, they will be skating without their top scorer from last season, as well as their top goal scorer. Anze Kopitar moved to Helsinki after scoring 91 points as a God last season; and Thomas Powell is in Munich. The interesting part of Kopitar’s fine season was that he played second-fiddle to top line center Logan Couture. Couture played 24 minutes per game and was one of the best two-way centers in the league (+41 turnover ratio). This season, he will play often with newcomer Artemy Panarin, who was a 30-goal scorer last year in a season that found him in three different cities. Panarin, 31, has speed, stamina and sniping ability and he could blossom with top minutes and a settled home situation. Gods fans will be hoping Jakub Petruzalek, an athletic Czech center, will at least repeat the career year he had in Season 11 for Athens. He will start as the No. 2 center and he could be THE pivotal player this season for the Gods.
3. How is the defense corps? John Tortorella, the team’s forever coach, can concentrate on the forwards and goalies because Athens’ defense is set. While they lost a key part of the defense corps over the summer, this group allowed just 26.7 shots per game in Season 11, and that was the lowest total in the franchise’s history. The third tandem of Robin Grossman and Erik Cernak may be inexperienced, but they are good and ready to step into a full-time role for the first time in their careers. Both will be around a long time in this league. Mattias Backman, Patrick Wiercioch and Ryan Murphy won’t all fit into the lineup, but they are a little higher up the depth chart than Grossman and Cernak. Whoever Torts chooses for the middle pairing, they will provide a solid 19 minutes per game for the Gods. The top duo is a sensible pairing of a super fast, offensive guy in Justin Schultz and a big, strong, defensive-minded player in Swede Esa Lindell. Last season, Schultz was +39, which was tops on the team and he was 5th on the team in points with 61. He worked mainly with Erik Johnson, who has left the team and is now in Dublin. Lindell, 26, is very ready to replace Johnson in that spot. Coach Tortorella should feel pretty good about his defense corps and with the knowledge that General Manager Stephen R has added some quality blueliners to back up the starting six.
History
Season Place PTS PP % PK % SPG SAPG GPG GAPG PIM
Season 1 20 63 16.4 76.7 28.20 31.60 2.54 3.61 9.77
Season 2 9 97 20.5 82.2 30.07 29.89 3.52 3.17 12.48
Season 3 6 100 20.7 85.4 33.82 27.72 3.72 3.00 13.16
Season 4 4 107 21.4 85.3 31.91 29.00 3.62 2.72 11.50
Season 5 7 102 21.8 83.2 32.76 28.89 3.74 3.15 9.74
Season 6 12 89 20.2 81.6 32.46 28.78 3.18 3.24 8.22
Season 7 6 102 23.1 83.5 32.24 28.63 3.60 3.26 7.28
Season 8 2 116 20.3 88.0 32.39 29.46 3.40 2.49 6.80
Season 9 1 120 22.5 84.2 32.40 27.49 3.71 2.59 8.24
Season 10 20 71 16.5 81.3 30.00 30.15 2.74 3.74 9.50
Season 11 12 90 19.9 81.9 31.56 26.71 3.61 3.18 10.85
Top Draft picks
Season 1: Ryan O’Reilly, C, current age 31. Games played: 871; points: 765; +33
Season 2: Staffan Kronwall, D, age 28. GP 805; Pts 371; +186
Season 3: Samuel Morin, D, age 27.
Season 4: Artturi Lehkonen, LW, age 26. GP 285; Pts 83; +12
Season 5: Miks Indrasis, LW, age 26. GP 316, Pts 96, -17
Season 6: Tanner Pearson, LW, age 28. GP 75, Pts 17, plus/minus +5
Season 7: Noah Juulsen, D, age 24.
Season 8: Esa Lindell, D, age 26. GP 315, Pts 75; +8
Season 9: Peter Thome, G, age 24. GP 39, Save Pct. 87.1
Season 10: Yanni Gourde, RW, age 28. GP 164; Pts 55, -12
Season 11: Erik Cernak, D, age 22. GP 39; Pts 8; -1
Season 12: Ryan Lindgren, D, age 21.
Trade History
Season 1 (picks without years listed are from initial draft)
Traded Round 9 pick (used to draft Nick Foligno) to Geneva for Round 13 pick (Marcus Kruger) and Round 14 pick (Mark Scheifele)
Traded Round 15 pick (Stefan Elliott) to Minsk for Matt Cullen
Traded Evander Kane and Alexander Sulzer to Dublin for Scott Hartnell, Tim Gleason, 2013 Round 1 pick (traded later) (Nail Yakupov), Round 2015 Round 1 pick (traded later) (Matt Nieto) and $5 million
Traded Tomas Vokoun to Madrid for Michal Neuvirth, Nick Johnson and 2013 Round 1 pick (traded later) (Martin Ruzicka)
Traded 2013 Round 3 pick (Magnus Johansson) to Milan for Brad Boyes
Season 2
Traded Michal Rozsival and 2014 Round 1 pick (Justin Schultz) to Prague for Nick Kronwall
Traded Nazem Kadri and Round 2 pick (lost track of this one; might have been Brendan Pirlini in 2014) to Belfast for 2013 Round 1 pick (Vadim Shipachyov)
Traded Nathan Horton and 2014 Round 2 pick (Brian Flynn) to Berlin for Miikka Kiprusoff
Traded Miikka Kiprusoff and Michal Neuvirth to Stockholm for Cam Ward
Traded Marcel Hossa to Prague for Michael Ryder
Traded Jared Spurgeon and Nick Johnson to Prague for Michal Rozsival and Kyle Palmieri
* seem to missing 3 trades that occurred in this general period.
Season 3
Traded Mark Scheifele to Prague for Joel Armia
Traded Johnny Boychuk to Milan for Dimitrios Kalyvas
Season 4
Traded Brooks Orpik, Bryan Bickell and 2017 Round 1 pick (Ivan Provorov) to Copenhagen for Alex Goligoski
Season 5
Season 6
Traded David Backes, Kyle Palmieri and a 2018 Round 1 pick (Olli Juolevi) to Moscow for Andrew Ladd, Jaroslav Halak, Brandon Sutter and a 2018 Round 2 pick (Noah Juulsen)
After Season 6 started:
Traded Ryan O’Reilly to Moscow for Anze Kopitar
Signed Christian Folin (free agent), Jack Hillen (free agent)
Lost Mike Indrasis (waivers)
Season 7
Traded Vadim Shipachyov, Staffan Kronwall and Tomas Vincour to Berlin for Logan Couture, Alexander Edler, Loui Eriksson and 2021 Round 2 pick (Evgeny Dadonov)
Lost Trevor Daley (waivers)
Season 8
Traded 2019 Round 2 pick (Denis Malgin) and 2020 Round 3 pick (Erik Kallgren) to Minsk for Colin Wilson
Season 9
Traded 2021 Round 3 pick (Jack Drury) to Berlin for Tomas Vincour
Season 10
Season 11
Traded Colin Wilson to Munich for Brad Marchand
Traded Nicola Hague to Munich for Artemy Panarin
Traded 2023 Round 3 pick to London for Danis Zaripov
Season 12
