Steven Stamkos ended a 12-year run with the Frankfurt/Lisbon franchise and will be a Krasnyye Zvezdy after accepting a two-year, $8.625 million deal with St. Petersburg. It was one of three offers the veteran considered before making his choice to go to Russia. Look for him to move to left wing and team with Sergei Mozyakin and Patrik Laine on a very potent top line for the Red Stars. Gustav Nyquist will be able to stay on what was SP’s best line last season in terms of plus-minus ratings, with Brandon Sutter and Tomas Tatar as his linemates. Mattias Sjogren, who was on the top line last season, is an excellent defensive player and penalty killer and Coach John Stevens will be trying to fit him into the lineup somewhere.
Stamkos is 33 years old and the second-leading scoring in league history. He has two 50-goal seasons on his resume and scored more than 100 points six times. His totals have dwindled a bit recently, but just three seasons ago, Stamkos scored 38 goals and 95 points. Mozyakin, with Stamkos and Laine on his wings, could hit the 100-point plateau for the first time in his 9-year career.
John Tavares, on the other hand, considered three contracts offers and chose to remain in Lisbon, signing a long-term contract for $7.2 million a year, pretty much assuring that he will retire as a Lisbon player. He is 33 years old now and remains the linchpin of the team.
Steven Stamkos, St. Petersburg 
Braden Holtby, Stockholm
Braden Holtby, meanwhile resigned with Stockholm to be that team’s main goalie. He signed a two-year, $7.750 contract today. Last season, Holtby had a 2.98 goals against average, with a 33-23-4 record and a 90.9 save percentage. The 33-year-old Has been the goalie in Stockholm since Season 3.
Anders Lee, Athens Gods 
Justin Faulk, Zurich Lions
Anders Lee is still waiting for his week with the EURO Cup after winning it with the Smurfs in Season 12, but he is no longer a Berlin player. The big American left winger who has scored more than 30 goals the lst two seasons as a second-line player, accepted an offer from Athens to play for $5.5 million this season. He is likely to join Logan Couture, another former Smurf, on the top line. Athens also picked up another LW today when they claimed Emerson Etem off waivers from Copenhagen.
Justin Faulk must be in incredible condition. He has already played in 948 career regular season games plus 155 playoff games and he’s always played at least 22 minutes per game. After 11 seasons as a Belfast Giant, he moved off to Bratislava last season, scored 9 goals and 30 assists, but decided against picking up his player option. Today, Faulk is a Zurich Lion joining a blueline corps that includes Jacob Trouba, Charlie McAvoy, Neal Pionk, Quinn Hughes and Rasmus Andersson. Faulk is likely to quarteback the powerplay in Switzerland. He signs a 3-year, $7.5 million deal.
Michael Del Zotto, London H.C. 
Cam Fowler, Lisbon H.C.
Longtime Minsk blueliner Michael Del Zotto built a stellar resume as a key part of Minsk’s fabled defense corps and as a free agent, he was asking for megabucks this season. He got them when London H.C. invested heavily in him to the tune of $7.6 million over three years. Del Zotto instantly becomes the leader on defense in England. A superb defensive defensemen who has acquired great hockey sense over the years, he still has impressive wheels and enviable puck skills. His 33-year-old body is showing a little wear, but he will be the best defenseman for the foreseeable future on the team that finished 11th last season.
Not too long after Del Zotto shocked everyone with his signing, another defenseman who was a fixture on a EURO League team did the same. Cam Fowler entered the league with Stockholm and played all but 20 of the regular season games the franchise has played. He was one of three players drafted in the top 3 rounds of the initial draft who were still with their original team. Now, just Patrice Bergeron (Zurich) and Kris Letang (Paris) can make that claim. Fowler signed on the dotted line with Bryan Camara and the Lisbon H.C. team for $6.3 million. He will likely join Brandon Montour, Sami Vatanen or Cody Ceci and he’ll probably be on the ice while John Tavares is most of the time.
The Bern Interrail did a quick mini makeover, signing four players to one-year deals in a short period. Quick offensive winger Kristian Kuusela signed for $6.25 million after playing five seasons as a regular for the Bratislava Eagles. The Finn is capable of hitting 50 points and he is a good possession player with more takeovers than giveaways. Then Bern resigned their goalie, Tuukka Rask, 36, for $4 million. He appeared in 59 games last season and had a 3.71 goals against average and an 86.8 save percentage. This season, he is likely to share the crease fairly evenly with rookie Chris Driedger. They then added Jordan Schroeder as a bottom six center for the reasonable price of $1.9 million. He played eight seasons for Dublin but hasn’t played a league game since Season 10. He is small but aside from that his game has few glaring deficiencies. Finally, the Interrail shelled out $6.1 million to land Dmitry Orlov, a quality defenseman who hs been around the league since Season 2 with five different teams. Between his years with Stockholm and London, and his years with St. Petersburg and Lisbon, Orlov played in Bern (Seasons 7 and 8). That’s when he had a career high in goals with 15. In the last two seasons, he has been a driver of the offenses in Petrograd and Lisbon, scoring 44 and 43 points respectively. In his second turn in Bern, expect him to pair with 27-year-old Darnell Nurse behind the duo of John Carlson and Dmitry Kulikov. Coincidentally, Bern traded Orlov for Nurse and Cam Atkinson in Season 9.
Luca Sbisa, Geneva Generals 
Martin Ruzicka, Geneva Generals
The Geneva Generals signed veteran free agents Luca Sbisa and center Martin Ruzicka on Monday to solidify a lineup that could now include only 80 OV or above forwards on the top 3 lines and one such player on the fourth line. Ruzicka brings a ton of experience and a good shot. Last season he played for Oslo and had 55 points. His career shooting pct. of 12.1 percent places him third on his new team behind Dylan Larkin and Nazem Kadri. Sbisa, who chose Geneva’s offer over one made by Bratislava, replaces Eric Gelinas in the lineup. Sbisa is a better defensive defenseman than Gelinas and he is about $800,000 cheaper than Gelinas was last season.
The Belfast Giants also retain defense star Alex Pietrangelo and winger Ondrej Palat as no other team tried to sign them. Pietrangelo, 33, signed a 3-year deal worth $7.5 million per season and Palat, 31, signed a similar contract. Pietrangelo is the league’s all-time leading scorer among defensemen and he was the first player drafted by the Paris franchise, going 13th overall. Palat was the top overall draft pick in Season 4, going to Belfast, where he has remained his whole career. He is by far the top left wing in career plus-minus with a +327 rating.
Center Tyler Johnson will remain in Milan, where he scored a careeer-high 95 points last season as a top line player. No other club made the 32-year-old an offer and he will earn $6.3 million for two years. Milan will also keep the services of its goalie of the seven previous seasons in Andrew Hammond. The 33-year-old has a lifetime record of 253-171-31 between the pipes for the Guerriero and last season his goals against was the worst of his career at a very respectable 2.99. He has never seen his save percentage go below 90 percent and ranks third all-time in that category among goalies with more that 10 games played. Hammond will play this season for $6.7 million. And on Monday, defense star Danny Dekeyser returned to the family, agreeing to a $4.9 million, one-year contract. The 32-year-old has been a top pair blueliner in Italy for the last 9 seasons and while he has always been good for 30-40 points in a year, the last two have seen his defensive stats rise. His +28 and +21 seasons in Seasons 11 and 12 reflect his improvement.
Czech winger Jan Kovar, who was drafted 3rd overall in Season 5, decided to return to the Cup champion Smurfs, although he had two other offers to consider, according to sources. Last season, his eighth in the league, he topped 30 goals for the first time and he reached a career best in points with 79. He has tremendous puck possession skills and his lifetime numbers are 539 takeaways to 385 giveaways. Kovar could play again this season with Aleksander Barkov as his center. Their left wing Anders Lee, however, has moved on to Greece this season.
On Tuesday, Evgenii Dadonov and Sami Vatanen decided to resign with their teams. Athens keeps the skillful winger Dadonov who has scored at least 20 goals and 50 points in all three of his seasons in the league. He has a good turnover ratio, doesn’t take penalties, and seems to be a bargain at $3.5 million for 3 years, even though he’s 31 now. Vatanen is also 31 and he will play his 10th season at Lisbon. His return to the team lessen the shock that Lisbon fans were bracing for. At the end of the season, it looked like they could lose John Tavares, Steven Stamkos, goalie Juuse Saros and their top for defensemen: Vatanen, Tyson Barrie, Dmitry Orlov and Drew Doughty. But Tavares, Saros and Vatanen are back; Stamkos, Barrie and Orlov are gone; and Doughty is still weighing his options.
