Team owner: Letizia Ortiz Rocasolano, Queen of Spain. A former television journalist, she married King Felipe VI
Farm Club: HC Barcelona
GM: Tony B (2nd GM in team’s history)
Coach: Dan Bylsma
Last season: 10th overall. (In playoffs, lost to Berlin)
Ins and Outs (Season 11 to Season 12)
Out: Brenden Dillon (buy out), Simon Despres (buy out), Dylan Olsen (waivers), Olivier Roland (free agent), Ondrej Kase (waiver), Dmitrij Jaskin (waivers), Colby Cave (free agent), Balasz Goz (free agent), Ivan Huml (free agent), Petr Zamorsky (free agent), Denis Hollenstein (free agent), Nick Seeler (free agent), Maximilian Adam (free agent), Bobby Farnham (free agent)
In: Jakob Silfverberg (free agent), Nick Bjugstad (free agent), Michael Stone (free agent), Marcus Johansson (free agent), Andreas Johnson (free agent), Alexander Wennberg (free agent), Ryan Spooner (free agent), Mikhail Grigorenko (free agent), Mattias Janmark (free agent), Alejandro Hernandez (free agent), T.J. Brennan (free agent), Lorenzo Maas (free agent), Ben Hutton (free agent), Justin Holl (free agent), Reid Boucher (free agent)
In Place (Key players signed or restricted free agents past Season 12)
Evander Kane, LW; Jeff Skinner, C; Jakob Silfverberg, RW; Jonas Brodin, D; T.J. Brennan, D;
Three Questions
- The Royals always finish in the top half of the league. Why is that? Aside from Robin Lehner, their excellent goalie, if you take a long look at their team statistics over the last 7 seasons, you will notice they are very consistent. Madrid seems to have stumbled onto some sort of formula that keeps them competitive year after year. But our scientists found something on an X-ray they want to keep an eye on. Madrid’s shots per game average has dropped in each of the last two seasons and is currently lower than at any time in Madrid team history. And unfortunately, the shots against average is the highest it has been since Season 4 when they placed 17th overall. Coach Dan Bylsma has never been afraid to shake up the lineup if things aren’t going well, and that attitude has kept the Royals in the playoff hunt for 7 straight years, so we have faith Bylsma and GM Tony B will find a way to reverse the bad trends. When they go to work on the team they will have a whole new set of tools in the tool box. Fourteen players on last year’s squad were asked to turn in their jerseys and 14 others have taken their place.
- How will Madrid’s lineup surprise us this year? Coaches trying to match lines with Bylsma and the Royals should find better things to do with their time. The Royals always seem to defy conventional thinking. Take the right wing position this season for example. Nick Bjugstad is rated by scouts to be several points better than Andreas Johnson. But there is Johnson, getting more minutes than Bjugstad this year. Johnson’s blazing speed on the right wing is well matched with Jeff Skinner’s blazing speed on the left side. Bjugstad’s size and strength are sure needed on the third line with slight Filip Sveningsson and Sakari Salminen, so that makes sense too. And on the top line, it makes sense to play Sean Couturier with any human being. The guy is talented. Aside from being a superb defensive center, he has blossomed into an offensive machine, scoring 97 and 101 points the last two seasons. More than 40 goals each season. Evander Kane gets to play with Couturier again this season to collect his 74 annual points. In 7 of the last 9 seasons, Kane has scored between 71 and 77 points. Talk about consistency. Early in his career, Kane played for Dublin and one of his teammates back then – Jakob Silfverberg – is now in Spain and is likely to spend a lot of time with Kane on Couturier’s line.
- Where are the problems in their lineup? Let’s start in goal. The only problem there is that the factory has trouble pumping out Robin Lehner jerseys fast enough to meet demand. The big Swede was a backup for two seasons before taking over the top job for what is now 9 straight seasons. He is 30 now and has a career GAA of 2.78 to go with his 90.2 save percentage. The forward group has three elite players in Couturier, Kane and Skinner, followed by good depth. The weakest Madrid forward is … well, we don’t see one. Two new defensemen on the third pairing might be the lone hole in the lineup. Rookie Ethan Bear is fast, but he simply has no experience and he will make mistakes as he learns on the job. Ben Hutton, 27, doesn’t have much more experience, although he played 82 games in Geneva two seasons ago. Jonas Brodin always gets beaucoup ice time and he will again this season while wearing an A on the front of his jersey. Brodin scored 48 points last season, Michael Stone sscored 37 with Bratislava last year, but no other Dman on the team scored more than 30. Madrid’s forwards are talented, but they will need more passes coming up the ice from the back if they want to get into the real Cup battle. Free agent pickups T.J. Brennan and Hutton are good passers and the success of the team could rest on their stick blades.
History
Season Place PTS PP % PK % SPG SAPG GPG GAPG PIM
Season 1 9 95 22.6 80.3 30.85 29.05 3.68 3.29 9.01
Season 2 17 83 17.4 83.9 31.72 28.74 3.15 3.33 9.76
Season 3 8 94 18.7 78.0 33.35 28.30 3.51 3.28 9.45
Season 4 17 81 19.5 83.6 30.77 32.00 2.99 3.40 10.79
Season 5 11 92 19.7 82.10 31.13 28.98 3.17 3.09 9.27
Season 6 6 105 18.8 86.6 32.23 27.91 3.21 2.82 9.13
Season 7 4 111 19.8 79.7 32.07 27.33 3.82 2.99 8.09
Season 8 7 102 21.0 82.6 31.35 27.38 3.24 2.82 9.59
Season 9 7 100 17.3 81.4 31.41 28.21 3.34 2.91 9.83
Season 10 11 89 20.7 81.1 29.71 28.50 3.23 3.05 8.61
Season 11 10 93 17.4 81.4 29.18 29.68 3.32 3.05 9.26
Top Draft picks
Season 1: Erik Karlsson, D, current age 32. Games played: 887; points: 591; +87
Season 2: Erik Ersberg, G, age 34. GP 181, Save Pct. 88.5
Season 3: Marko Dano, C, age 27. GP 509, Pts 308; -91
Season 4: Haydn Fleury, D, age 24. GP 48; Pts 6; -12
Season 5: Loic Lamperier, LW, age 27. GP 390, Pts 116, +11
Season 6: MacKenzie Blackwood, G, age 24. GP 15, Save pct. 86.7
Season 7: Josh Manson, D, age 29. GP 244, Points 60, +34
Season 8: Eeli Tolvanen, LW, age 22.
Season 9: Filip Sveningsson, LW, age 24. GP 75, Pts 40, +18
Season 10: Danton Heinen, RW, age 24.
Season 11: Matthew Boldy, LW, age 19.
Season 12: Ethan Bear, D, age 22.
Trade History
Season 1 (picks without years listed are from initial draft)
Traded Max Pacioretty to Frankfurt for Round 7 pick (used to draft Slava Voynov), Round 10 pick (later traded) (Trevor Daley) and 2013 Round 2 pick (Erik Ersberg)
Traded Dustin Brown, Round 10 pick (Trevor Daley) and Round 11 pick (Chris Kreider) to Milan for Gabriel Landeskog
Traded Sammi Pahlsson to Bern for Round 20 pick (Brandon Prust) and Round 22 pick (Mark Visentin)
Traded Michal Neuvirth, Nick Johnson and 2013 Round 1 pick (Martin Ruzicka) to Athens for Tomas Vokoun
Traded Henrik Sedin to Milan for Jordan Stall, Chris Kreider and 2013 Round 2 pick (Jonas Brodin)
Traded 2013 Round 2 pick (Eliezer Sherbatov) to Milan for Brian Rolston
Season 2
Traded Slava Voynov, 2014 Round 2 pick (traded later) (Robert Hagg), Round 1 pick (traded later) (Sean Monhan) to Berlin for R. J. Umberger, Brayden Coburn, Mikhail Grigorenko and a second-round pick(traded later) (Josh Morrissey?)
Traded Erik Ersberg to Berlin for Brian Campbell and 2014 Round 3 pick (Marko Dano)
Traded Saku Koivu to Prague for Chad Larose and 2015 Round 2 pick (Jake Virtanen)
* seem to be missing one trade that probably occurred in here somewhere
Season 3
Traded Jeff Carter, Ryan Johansen and 2015 Round 1 pick (Nikita Kucherov) to Stockholm for Rick Nash and 2015 Round 2 pick (Haydn Fleury)
Season 4
Traded Tomas Vokoun and 2015 Round 2 pick (Nikita Scherbak) to Stockholm for Jonas Hiller
Traded Rick Nash, Fedor Tyutin, Braydon Coburn and Patrick O’Sullivan to Edinburgh for Derek Stepan, Chris Stewart, Dan Winnick and Francois Beauchemin
Season 5
Traded Marko Dano and 2017 Round 2 pick (Ilya Samsonov) to Copenhagen for Andrej Meszaros
Traded Jordan Staal to Minsk for Patrik Berglund and Nick Leddy
Traded Andrew Cogliano to Copenhagen for 2016 Round 2 pick (Reto Suri)
Traded Brian Campbell and 2017 Round 1 pick (Jean Gabriel Pageau) to Copenhagen for Brooks Laich, Andrew Cogliano and Nick Holden.
Season 6
Traded Nick Holden to Helsinki for Derek Roy and Carlo Colaiacovo
After Season 6 started:
Traded Lee Stempniak, Dan Winnik, Jonas Hiller and 2018 Round 1 pick (Michael McLeod) to Copenhagen for Nathan Gerbe and Colin Greening
Traded Nick Leddy and Chris Stewart to Moscow for Blake Wheeler, Marc-Andre Bourdon and 2018 Round 3 pick (Tage Thompson)
Lost Jonas Hiller (waivers)
Season 7
After season started: lost Roman Polak (waivers); signed Josh Jooris (free agent); signed Colin Miller (free agent)
Season 8
Traded Colin Greening, a 2020 Round 2 pick (Linus Hogberg) and a 2021 Round 2 pick (Cale Fleury) to Munich for Craig Smith and Josh Bailey; lost Bailey on waivers
Traded Yasin Ehliz to Belfast for Gabriel Bourque
After Season 8 started
Lost Luke Adam (waivers)
Season 9
Traded Erik Karlsson and Gabriel Landeskog to Belfast for P.K. Subban, Evander Kane, Nardo Nagtzaam, Jacon Larsson, Filip Westerlund and 2023 Round 1 pick (Philippe Myers)
Season 10
Traded Danton Heinen to Zurich for Sandro Zurkirchen
Traded 2022 Round 3 pick (Braydon Tracey) to Lisbon for Mats Rosseli Olsen
Season 11
Traded Mats Rosseli Olsen and 2023 Round 3 pick (Mackenzie Entwhistle) to Munich for Dmitrij Jaskin
Traded Nardo Nagtzaam and Reto Suri to London for Jeff Skinner
Season 12
