Farm Club – Glasgow (Scotland) Claymores
GM: John Charles (3rd GM in team’s history)
Coach: Bob Boughner (replaced Tom Rowe after Season 11) (Rowe replaced Bob Hartley after Season 8) (Hartley replaced Randy Carlyle after Season 5) (Carlyle replaced Lindy Ruff)
Last season: 16th overall. Did not make playoffs.
Ins and Outs (Season 11 to Season 12)
Out: Sidney Crosby (free agent), Brett Connolly (free agent), Tamir Ganbold (free agent),
In: Jared Cowen (free agent), Dylan Olsen (waivers)
In Place (Key players signed past Season 12)
Jamie Benn, LW; Jakub Kovar, G; Gurkan Cetinkaya, D; Sam Reinhart, RW; Dylan Strome, C; Nolan Patrick, C
Three Questions
1. What signs of progress did we see in Season 11? After bottoming out in Season 10, the Capitals picked themselves up by the bootstraps (that phrase, by the way, was meant as sarcasm in the late 1800s but has since become a positive statement about rebounding with effort. You’re welcome.) in Season 11 to climb 8 spots in the standings and improve by 27 points. If the Caps can keep that trend going, Edinburgh could challenge for home ice advantage in the playoffs this year. But let’s not put the cart before the horse (that phrase first showed up in 1589 in John Heywood’s “A Dialogue Containing the Number in Effect of all the Proverbs in the English Tongue.” Work on the title writing, John). Coach Bob Boughner was able to get both the team’s goals for and goals against averages going in the right directions last season. He needs to keep that momentum. As a player in the NHL, Boughner was a tough guy who collected penalty minutes like a starfish collects sea dirt (that phrase first appeared on this page one second ago). But as a coach in Scotland, he somehow changed his tune entirely and he now professes fair, safe play. All other teams in the league had more penalty mintues than Edinburgh did last season.
2. How can they afford to lose Crosby? Canadian star Sidney Crosby hasn’t been the superstar in the EURO League that he was in the NHL. Sid scored 53 goals for Belfast in Season 2, but he never scored more than 33 again, and he never reached the 100 point plateau in the EURO. He is also among the most fragile, injury-prone players in hockey nowadays. So why is losing the 35-year-old to free agency a loss for the Capitals? Because despite his 75 defense attribute, he is one of the best defensive forwards around. Only three forwards have blocked more shots than Crosby has in his career and he is ranked 13th all-time in takeaways. He is also a great leader and faceoff man. So instead of Jamie Benn and Sam Reinhart playing on Crosby’s wings, they will now flank Scott Conway. Who? Is he related to Charlie Conway from The Mighty Ducks movies? No, this Conway is from England and he has been on the team for parts of 7 seasons. He is a good passer who will score 30 goals this season. Kevin Hayes and Dylan Strome are below Conway at center on the team depth chart, mainly because Hayes doesn’t have the wheels to keep up with Reinhart and Benn and Strome is only 23 and not quite there yet.
3. Tell us about the defense, would you? No. Find out for yourself. Just kidding. Edinburgh has gone with the goaltending tandem of Jakub Kovar and Luka Gracnar for six years now and the two 28-year-olds are under contract for the next two seasons. Kovar, the starter, was an all-star last season, compiling a save percentage of 90.2, which is 3-tenths better than his 89.9 career average. In front of him will be experienced defensemen. While all but one of the forwards in Edinburgh are under 30, five of the six starting defensemen are over 30, including Gurkan Cetinkaya, an underrated Turkish defenseman who hits often and cleanly. In each of the last four seasons, Cetinkaya has recorded more than 200 hits while spending 10 minutes or less in the penalty box all season. Last season was his best in his decade in the league, with 40 points, 285 hits and 101 blocked shots. He is penciled in on the top pair and in his prime. This season, he will have two new experienced teammates on the Caps blueline. Jared Cowen and Dylan Olsen came over as free agents. Cowen, 31, played for Helsinki his whole career and he has matured into a model defenseman: tough, smart and talented enough to average 8 goals and 30 points while playing plus hockey for the last 8 years. He could be a great addition to the Capitals.
History
Season Place PTS PP % PK % SPG SAPG GPG GAPG PIM
Season 1 12 90 15.2 80.8 29.84 29.06 3.11 3.13 9.11
Season 2 12 93 17.8 82.3 30.05 27.26 3.51 3.43 12.13
Season 3 13 83 15.7 81.3 30.16 28.44 3.44 3.51 10.66
Season 4 5 107 20.3 82.4 32.22 29.05 3.77 3.02 9.98
Season 5 14 85 19.2 83.1 29.62 31.85 3.23 3.40 8.79
Season 6 20 71 11.3 84.3 27.73 32.60 2.78 3.40 8.95
Season 7 22 66 14.8 79.9 25.82 33.50 2.59 3.44 7.68
Season 8 16 80 14.5 81.3 27.57 34.10 2.84 3.15 7.82
Season 9 22 66 17.8 77.8 26.27 34.01 3.22 3.95 8.68
Season 10 24 52 15.7 81.9 24.01 35.66 2.46 4.01 7.33
Season 11 16 79 17.4 78.2 26.17 35.02 2.95 3.54 6.68
Top Draft picks
Season 1: Henrik Lundqvist, G, current age 40. Games played: 606; save pct. 90.7
Season 2: Gurkan Cetinkaya, D, age 30. GP 694, Pts 215, -57
Season 3: Casey Cizikas, C, age 30. GP 422, Points 113, -12
Season 4: Sam Reinhart, C/RW, age 26. GP 450, Points 331, -194
Season 5: Alexander Kerfoot, RW, age 29. GP 327, Points 79, +9
Season 6: Mike Hoffman, LW, age 31. GP 478, Points 228, -86
Season 7: Jess Puljujarvi, RW, Age 22. GP 108, Pts 22, -7
Season 8: Nolan Patrick, C, age 22. GP 190, Pts 77, -30
Season 9: Dominik Kubalik, LW, age 22. GP 190, Pts 49, -11
Season 10: Flip Zadina, W, age 21.
Season 11: Kirby Dach, C, age 19.
Season 12: Jamie Drysdale, D, age 18.
Trade History
Season 1 (picks without years listed are from initial draft)
Traded Round 3 pick (used to draft Daniel Sedin) and Round 5 pick (Ray Whitney) to Bern for Round 2 pick (Derek Stepan)
Traded Round 15 pick (Evgeny Kuznetsov) to Bern for Dan Winnick
Traded Nick Bjugstad to Minsk for Matt Hunwick, for Round 25 pick (Daniel Paille) and another Round 25 pick (Alexei Emelin)
Traded Round 21 pick (David Moss) to Bratislava for David Steckel
Traded 2013 Round 2 pick (Gerhard Unterluggauer) to Milan for Andrew Cogliano
Traded Artem Anisimov, Blake Wheeler and Marc-Eduoard Vlasic to St. Petersburg for James Neal, Andrei Kostitsyn and Karl Alzner
Traded Henrik Lundqvist to Helsinki for John Tavares, Ilya Bryzgalov, 2013 Round 2 pick (Jakub Kovar) and $5 million
Traded David Steckel and 2013 Round 3 pick (Jamie Oleksiak) to St. Petersburg for Kyle Wellwood
Season 2 – None
Season 3 – None
Traded James Neal and Oliver Ekman-Larsson to Belfast for Tony Martensson, Olivier Roland, Ondrej Pavelec and Adam Larsson
Traded Ondrej Pavelec, 2016 Round 1 pick (Simon Hjalmarsson), 2017 Round 2 pick to Geneva for Kari Lehtonen
Traded Derek Stepan, Dan Winnick, Chris Stewart and Francois Beauchemin to Madrid for Rick Nash, Braydon Coburn, Fedor Tyutin and Patrick O’Sullivan
Season 4
Traded John Tavares to Lisbon for Claude Giroux
Traded 2017 Round 3 pick (Niklas Svedberg) to Berlin for 2016 Round 2 pick (Marc Peninou (named changed to Alexander Kerfoot))
Traded Tony Martensson to Berlin for Matt Read
Traded 2018 Round 2 pick (Radek Faksa) to Copenhagen for Martin Thornberg
Season 5
Moves After Season 5 started
- Claimed Bryan Bickell (waivers)
- Signed Alexander Sulzer (free agent)
- Signed Mike Cammalleri (free agent)
- Claimed Nino Niedereitter (waivers)
- Signed Grant Clitsome (free agent)
- Signed Andy Sertich (free agent)
Season 6
After Season 6 started: Traded Claude Giroux to Belfast for Sidney Crosby, Mikko Rantanen, 2018 Round 1 pick (Jake Bean) and 2018 Round 2 pick (Andreas Athanasiou)
Traded Olivier Roland and 2018 Round 3 pick (Yegor Korshkov) to Minsk for Kevin Hayes, 2018 Round 2 pick
(Brandon Davidson) and 2019 Round 2 pick (Jimmy Vesey)
Season 7
Traded Brandon Dubinsky to Copenhagen for Josh Holden and 2018 Round 2 pick (Brett Pesce)
Claimed David Savard (waivers)
After season started: Signed Thomas Vanek (free agent)
Season 8
Season 9
Season 10
Season 11
Traded Mikko Rantanen to Dublin for Dylan Strome
Traded Casey Cizikas to London for Jason Zucker
Season 12
