Farm Club: St. Petersburg Dynamo
GM: Brett Warbeck (6th GM in team’s history)
Coach: Joel Quenneville (formerly Glen Gulutzan)
Last season: 15th overall (did not make playoffs)
Ins and Outs:
(Season 11 to Season 12)
Out: Boone Jenner (traded), Matthias Bieber (free agent), Wei Yang Zhang (free agent), Frederik Gauthier (free agent), Jean-Francois Berube (free agent)
In: Ryan Johansen (free agent), Jordan Binnington (waivers), Linus Klasen (free agent), Troy Stecher (waivers), Zach Smith (free agent), Andre Burakovsky (waivers), Andrew Dickson (free agent)
In Place
(Key players signed past Season 12)
Alexander Salak, G; Nick Leddy, D; Ryan O’Reilly, C: Max Pacioretty, LW; MIkko Lehtonen, RW
Three Questions
1. How can Moscow get back to the playoffs? After narrowly missing the playoffs in Season 11, the Maniacs signaled they are willing to risk a step backwards this season when they traded away their third-leading scorer for a young defenseman and two draft picks. They still have the horses to stay in the playoff race, but it could be a struggle. Joel Quenneville is still coaching the team, but he has a new boss in General Manager Brett Warbeck, who is struggling a bit with the new language he has to learn in Russia. He had no trouble speaking a combination of Canadian and money to free agent Ryan Johansen during the off season, however. Several teams wanted the 30-yar-old center, but Warbeck wooed him for $6.3 million. In Season 10, Johansen had his breakout year with Stockholm. The talented passer went from 26 to 85 points in one season, and he was a +44 player. Last year, he was one of the very best second-line centers in the league with 72 points, a +35 rating and a +35 turnover ratio. He is still a second-line center. Ahead of him on the Moscow depth chart is three-time all-star Ryan O’Reilly, who is capable of getting 300 shots on goal and 30 goals while being an elite defensive forward … and perhaps an all-star for the fourth time. The Maniacs will need great years from O’Reilly and Johansen to make the playoffs
2. Where else are the Maniacs good? Czech goalie Goalie Alexander Salak is one of the best in the league and he is always in the talk for a Best Goalie trophy, which he has won once, and a spot on the Northern Conference all-star team, which he has made four times. Last season, his sixth as a Moscow starter, he had a 91.6 save percentage and a 2.70 goals against average. So the Maniacs can feel very secure in net. They can also feel safe in thinking they have a quality defenseman and leader on the blueline in Nick Leddy, who seems a safe bet to get into double figures in goals and around 40 points. Leddy has great speed and he is a sly defender, capable of being where the puck is about to go. Trivia time: Which EURO League player had more shot blocks than Leddy did last season? Answer: No one did. His 132 blocks were only bettered twice in the last 7 seasons. Skating is an area where Moscow excels, especially among the defense corps.
3. What parts of their game could hurt them? With about $2.5 million in cap space, GM Warbeck doesn’t have much wiggle room to make changes in the lineup, but right now, the team is weak in a couple of places. Fortunately, the ice time that players like Halfthor Sigrunarson, Bernd Wolf and rookie Cody Glass will get won’t amount to much, but while they are out there, expect them to get overrun every so often. It’s on those occasions that Salak will have to come through with big saves. Moscow needs better pure left wings at the moment. Linus Klasen is the best LW on the team and he was one of several nice free agent pickups Warbeck made. With more ice time to show off his great speed and hockey sense, Klasen is primed for a breakout season like Ryan Johansen had two seasons ago, especially if he gets time on the top line with Ryan O’Reilly and Mikko Lehtonen. Andre Burakovsky can be moved to left wing, so there is a chance he could get some minutes with O’Reilly and Lehtonen. Still, left wing is a little weak for the Maniacs at the moment.
History
Season Place PTS PP % PK % SPG SAPG GPG GAPG PIM
Season 1 18 77 15.9 81.1 31.00 29.88 3.10 3.20 8.48
Season 2 5 101 18.4 83.4 32.62 28.21 3.38 2.8 11.21
Season 3 4 (cup) 106 20.9 80.4 32.61 29.48 3.56 3.15 9.45
Season 4 1 113 18.6 86.4 35.01 27.01 3.44 2.34 8.62
Season 5 6 107 20.9 86.9 32.50 27.45 3.67 2.76 9.67
Season 6 5 106 21.2 86.8 33.38 27.91 3.74 2.88 10.00
Season 7 13 87 17.2 80.8 29.44 29.98 3.17 3.22 9.79
Season 8 11 90 19.0 83.3 29.11 30.40 2.96 2.90 9.30
Season 9 15 85 17.8 81.7 28.66 31.93 3.16 3.46 11.41
Season 10 16 77 15.6 85.5 27.43 33.11 2.88 3.02 10.89
Season 11 15 81 17.7 82.7 26.96 32.43 2.73 3.30 11.56
Top Draft picks
Season 1: Anze Kopitar, C, current age 35. Games played 861; Points 931, +51
Season 2: Alexander Salak, G, age 31. GP 455; Save Pct. 90.9
Season 3: Darnell Nurse, D, age 26. GP 416; Pts 98; -39
Season 4: Nikolaj Ehlers, LW, age 25. GP 381; Pts 159; Plus/minus +103
Season 5: Sam Godfrey, D, age 31. GP 651; Pts 16; -16
Season 6: Brock Boeser, RW, age 23. GP 238, Pts 170, +66
Season 7: Olli Juolevi, D, age 23.
Season 8: Cody Glass, C, age 22.
Season 9: Layne Viveiros, D, age 23. GP 219, Pts 56, +11
Season 10: Liam Foudy, C, age 21.
Season 11: Cole Caufield, C/RW, age 20.
Season 12: Tim Stutzle, C, age 18.
Trade History
Season 1 (picks without years listed are from initial draft)
Traded Round Phil Kessel and Bobby Ryan to Dublin for Alxeander Ovechkin and 2014 Round 1 pick (used to draft Darnell Nurse)
Season 2
Traded Alexander Ovechkin and Dave Bolland to Copenhagen for Andrew Ladd, Brandon Sutter and Kevin Dallman
*Three trades missing from this period. Tomas Kaberle seems to have been traded in one of them.
Season 3
Traded James Van Riemsdyk and Marcus Johansson to Stockholm for Dustin Brown
Season 4
Traded 2015 Round 1 pick to Berlin for Kris Versteeg
Season 5
Traded Darnell Nurse, 2016 Round 1 pick (traded later to Copenhagen and then Bratislava – Morten Madsen) and 2017 Round 1 pick to Frankfurt for Max Pacioretty
Traded Nicolas Ehlers to Helsinki for 2016 Round 1 pick (later traded to Gothenberg)
Traded Kevin Dallman and 2016 Round 1 pick (formerly Helsinki’s – Olli Palola) to Gothenberg for Ryan Suter and Blake Wheeler
Traded Aleksey Morozov to Gothenburg for 2018 Round 3 pick (Trevor Van Riemsdyk)
After Season 5 started
Signed Rich Peverley (free agent)
Traded Alexei Kalyuzhny to Lisbon for a 2017 Round 3 pick (Melker Karlsson)
Season 6
Traded Andrew Ladd, Jaroslav Halak, Brandon Sutter and a 2018 Round 2 pick (Noah Juulsen) to Athens for David Backes, Kyle Palmeiri and a 2018 Round 1 pick (Logan Brown)
After Season 6 started:
Traded Anze Kopitar to Athens for Ryan O’Reilly
Traded Brock Boeser to Helsinki for Mitch Marner
Traded Blake Wheeler, Marc-Andre Bourdon and 2018 Round 3 pick (Tage Thompson) to Madrid for Nick Leddy and Chris Stewart
Signed Mark Fayne and Brian Campbell (free agents)
Bought out Mike Brown
Season 7
Claimed Derek Roy and Gerhard Unterluggauer (waivers)
After season started: Traded Travis Sanheim to St.Petersburg for Karl Alzner
bought out contracts of Vinny Lecavalier and John Mitchell; claimed Riley Nash (waivers)
Season 8
Season 9
Traded 2021 Round 1 pick (later traded to Stockholm and used to pick Ryan Merkley) to Helsinki for Boone Jenner and 2021 Round 3 pick (Cale Addison)
Season 10
Season 11
Traded Mitch Marner and Layne Viveiros to Belfast for Mikko Lehtonen, Jakub Krejcik and 2024 Round 1 pick
Season 12
Traded Boone Jenner to Copenhagen for Thomas Chabot, 2023 Round 3 pick (Morgan Geekie) and 2024 Round 1 pick
Traded Nick Leddy to Oslo for Elias Lindholm, Travis Sanheim and 2025 Round 2 pick
