Season 12: Dublin Guinness Chuggers

Farm Club: Cool Mokum Amsterdam (Netherlands)

Owner: Ivan Menezes, CEO of Diageo, a London-based company that owns Dublin’s Guinness Brewery.

GM: Steve Stringer (Sixth GM in team’s history)

Coach: Mike Johnston (replaced Bruce Cassidy after Season 10) (Cassidy replaced Paul MacLean after Season 7; MacLean replaced Dave Tippett after Season 4; Tippett replaced Alain Vigneault after Season 3)

Last season: 23rd overall, (Missed the playoffs)

Ins and Outs (Season 11 to Season 12)

Out: Jakob Silfverberg (free agent), Dustin Byfuglien (free agent), Nikita Kucherov (trade), Andreas Eder (trade), Dion Phaneuf (free agent), Mathieu Joseph (waivers), Joakim Nygard (waivers)

In: Jake Muzzin (free agent), Evgeni Malkin (free agent), Erik Johnson (waivers), Calvin De Haan (waivers), Brad Marchand (free agent), Curtis Lazar (free agent), Vince Dunn (waivers), Tomas Jurco (free agent), Stanislav Galimov (free agent), Travis Konecny (waivers), Robert Hagg (waivers), Jiri Patera (waivers), Filip Chytil (waivers)

In Place (Key players signed past Season 12)

Hampus Lindholm, D; Rasmus Ristolainen, D; Alexis Lafreniere, LW; Elias Pettersson, C; Kaapo Kakko, RW

Three Questions

1. How can the Irish get to the playoffs? If Dublin had better goaltending, it is quite conceivable that the Guinness Chuggers could jump from the bottom of the standings to the playoffs this season. They are loaded with young skill players up front, their blueline is a competitive group … it’s just their goaltending. The big question in Ireland right now is “Is Stanislav Galimov for real?” We should know in about 20 games. The young Russian goalie was a backup in Helsinki for the last four years, and last year he put up wonder numbers: a 10-2 record, a 1.83 goals against average, and a 93.7 save percentage. Is Galimov that good or did he simply benefit from having the top team in the league in front of him? Maybe it was a little of both. In any event, we should learn a lot about him soon .. with the team that gave up the third-most shots per game last season in front of him.

2. How are the Dublin forwards? We’re not going to say they are among the best in the league … but we reserve the right to say that a little further on down the road. We love the Chuggers’ fourth line of Pierre Luc Dubois, Teuvo Tervainen and Travis Konecny. Yes, we said “fourth” line. Do those youngsters have a chance to get more minutes in with a promotion? Possibly, but GM Steve Stringer has assembled an interesting mix of experience and youth. The forward lines have a little of everything: defensive forwards like Curtis Lazar and Brad Marchand, playmakers like William Nylander and Brandon Saad, snipers like Elias Pettersson and Mike Hoffman. And all 12 forwards seem to have good finesse and hockey sense ratings. What they might be missing are big durable players, particularly at center. Vets Evgeny Malkin and Jordan Staal are likely to miss a bunch of games, which would give Christian Dvorak a chance to go from the press box to the bench for games. Overall, Dublin has a good group up front. And having Alexis Lafreniere in your future is never a bad thing for a team.

3. How did they do in the off season? Dublin was active in free agency, as one might expect a team that shared the basement would be. And they scooped up some tasty treats from the waiver wire to give them 11 new players, by our count. That includes five defensemen who are facilitating a drastic makeover of the blueline corps. Returners for Coach Mike Johnston are Rasmus Ristolainen, Hampus Lindholm and Luca Sbisa; newcomers include Jake Muzzin (+28 with Milan), Erik Johnson (+36 with Athens) and Calvin De Haan (+19 with Oslo). All six starters are mobile and they don’t lack for size as a unit. And the early pairings make sense. For example, Sbisa will rack up hits but not goals, but his partner Muzzin will do just the opposite. Muzzin’s big slapshot resulted in 20 goals two seasons ago. The Guinness Chuggers have a very deep bench at the defense position. This group will be good. But with the question mark in goal, they better be really good at blocking shots.

History

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

Season 1 13 90 17.9 81.3 31.07 30.33 3.39 3.30 8.95

Season 2 7 98 19.5 84.9 31.22 30.45 3.56 3.11 9.98

Season 3 7 99 17.4 84.6 29.83 31.34 3.66 3.18 9.35

Season 4 20 71 20.9 81.3 29.43 33.35 2.88 3.73 10.15

Season 5 13 85 16.8 84.9 28.37 32.17 3.07 3.12 8.13

Season 6 18 77 17.0 79.6 29.94 30.21 3.11 3.59 8.06

Season 7 16 75 19.7 81.3 28.77 31.87 2.96 3.46 7.52

Season 8 17 77 22.1 81.3 29.73 29.99 3.13 3.37 8.37

Season 9 17 73 19.8 80.5 28.74 29.78 3.00 3.71 10.61

Season 10 23 63 16.2 81.5 25.63 31.30 2.61 3.71 10.15

Season 11 23 57 14.1 81.0 25.10 33.70 2.60 3.70 9.04

Top Draft picks

Season 1: Alexander Ovechkin, LW, current age 37. Games played: 882; Points 815; -72

Season 2: Olexander Pobyedonostsev, D, age 36; GP 466; Pts 142; -97

Season 3: Jake Allen, G, age 31.

Season 4: Brendan Perlini, LW, age 25. GP 81; Pts 9; -3

Season 5: Nardo Nagtzaam, C, age 28. GP 491; Points 222; +19

Season 6: Jori Lehtera, C, age 33. GP 210; Points 80; +3

Season 7: Pierre-Luc Dubois, C/W, age 22. GP 164; Pts 56; -13

Season 8: Elias Pettersson, C/LW, age 22. GP 82; Pts 55; -51

Season 9: Calvin Thurkauf, LW, age 23. GP 78; Pts 30; -29

Season 10: Vince Dunn, D, age 23. GP 67; Pts 17; +8

Season 11: Kaapo Kakko, RW, age 19.

Season 12: Alexis Lafreniere, LW, age 18.

Trade History

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

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

Traded Round 9 pick (Joe Corvo) and Round 11 pick (Milan Hejduk), Round 13 pick (Josh Bailey) and $10,000 to Munich for Round 8 pick (Tomas Fleischmann), Round 10 pick (James Wisniewski) and Round 16 pick (Nikita Nikitin)

Traded Alexander Ovechkin and 2014 Round 1 pick (Darrell Nurse) to Moscow for Phil Kessel and Bobby Ryan

Traded Scott Hartnell, Tim Gleason, 2013 Round 1 pick (later traded) (Nail Yakupov), 2015 Round 1 pick (later traded) (Matt Nieto) and $5 million to Athens for Evander Kane and Alexander Sulzer

Traded 2013 Round 2 pick (Niclas Danielsson) and $1.35 million to Milan for Zbynek Michalek and Jaroslav Spacek

Traded Boone Jenner to Helsinki for Jakub Silfverberg and 2013 Round 2 pick (Olexander Podbyedonostsev)

Season 2

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

Season 4

Traded Bobby Ryan to Stockholm for Jakub Petruzalek and James Van Riemsdyk

Season 5

Traded 2017 Round 2 pick (Pavel Zacha) to Minsk for Renat Mamashev

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

Season 6

Traded Evander Kane and Nardo Nagtzaam to Belfast for Alexander Ovechkin and Cody Hodgson

After Season 6 started: Traded 2018 Round 2 pick (Frank Vatrano) to Lisbon for Clarke MacArthur;

Claimed Colton Gillies (waivers), Mattias Tedenby (waivers)

Lost Jori Lehtera (waivers)

Claimed Brian Campbell on waiver and then lost him on waivers

Season 7

Traded 2019 Round 2 pick (Cal Foote) to Belfast for Cam Talbot

Traded Brendan Perlini to Lisbon for Matt Martin

Traded Alexander Ovechkin and a 2020 Round 3 pick (Charles Williams) to Bratislava for Dylan Strome, Teuvo Teravainen, Leon Draisaitl and a 2020 Round 1 pick (Troy Loggins)

Traded Ryan Kesler to Lisbon for Magnus Paajarvi and Emerson Etem

After season started: Signed Troy Brouwer (free agent) but lost Brouwer (waivers), signed Carlo Colaiacovo (free agent)

Season 8

Traded 2021 Round 3 pick (later regained in a trade with Lisbon, but traded to Minsk who used it to pick Lukas Dostal) to Lisbon for Yannik Weber

Traded Ryan Murray to Berlin for Christian Dvorak

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

Season 9

Traded 2021 Round 2 pick (Joe Veleno) to Helsinki for Cody Eakin

Traded 2022 Round 2 pick (Alex Newhook) to Copenhagen for Brent Burns

Season 10

Traded Jake Allen, Steve Oleksy and 2021 Round 3 pick (Lukas Dostal) to Minsk for Milan Lucic* and Jordan Staal*

Traded Troy Loggins, Mattias Tedenby* and Colton Gillies* to Bratislava for Alexander Ovechkin*, Ryan Suter* and Joakim Nygard