GM: Peter Ott
Coach: Bruce Cassidy
Last season: 14th place overall. In playoffs, lost to Paris.
Ins and Outs
(Season 12 to Season 13)
In: Nicolas Roy (free agent), Christoffer Ehn (free agent)
Out: Devin Shore (free agent), Frank Corrado (free agent)
Potential Lineup
Nail Yakupov/Miro Aaltonen/Jimmie Ericsson
Alex Galchenyuk/Mark Scheifele/Evgeny Kuznetsov
Brady Tkachuk/Alexandre Texier/Robert Thomas
Michael Rasmussen/Nicolas Roy/Maxim Sushko
Torey Krug/Vladimir Roth
Miro Heiskanen/Mikhail Sergachev
Damon Severson/Dennis Cholowski
Andrey Vasilevskiy/Anton Forsberg
Three Questions
1. Will this be their best year since Season 1? We think that all depends on one Mr. Andrey Vasilevskiy. Not to put too much pressure on the Russian goalie, but Prague has the pieces in place to keep moving up the ladder. Actually, last year was the franchise’s best since Season 1, the year they placed 6th overall. The Sparta were 14th last season and their best 4 or 5 players are just hitting the beginning of their projected peaks. They will have two strong forward lines and an excellent defense duo backed by some decent depth on the blueline. Vasilevskiy and Swede Anton Forsberg will share the job of minding the cage for the Sparta and they should be used to that role since they have been the team’s goalies for the last 4 seasons. Both men are 28 and they seem to be perfectly happy with the arrangement where Vasilevskiy gets a few more games but they generally split the job. Maybe that arrangement should be tweaked a little. Vasilevskiy seemed to turn some corner last year while Forsberg didn’t. The Russian’s goals against average was gradually coming down for years, but last year’s improvement was pretty substantial, going from 3.72 to 3.24. His save percentage neared 90 after five years in the 87.5 neighborhood. Forsberg’s goals against average for the last three seasons have steadily hovered near 4.15 and his save percentage over that time is 86.4. He was in the bottom six of EURO goalies a season ago and the Sparta will need him to turn the same corner Vasilevskiy did.
2. Is offense a problem? You are probably asking that because you scrolled through the top 50 scorers in the league last year and didn’t see any Spartan on the list. The truth is Prague had a weird, odd, strange, nutsy cuckoo problem last season: their lower lines out-performed their top line. It’s tough to win if the line you have out there 23 minutes per game isn’t working. Jimmie Ericsson was -48, Mark Scheifele was -43 and Alex Galchenyuk was -42. Second liners Miro Aaltonen and Russians Nail Yakupov and Evgeny Kuznetsov were -3 on average and Aaltonen and Yakupov battled down to the wire for the team scoring title, scoring 72 and 71 points, respectively. And winger Matt Nieto, the third-line wing, outscored top-line LW Galchenyuk 47 to 38. Unfortunately, it appears Nieto is being forced out of the lineup due to the salary cap this season. Center Chris Tierney too. Some might call what Prague has depth, and there is no arguing this team has good depth, but that top line was kind of stinky last season. Another thing this forward group has is blazing speed. Eleven of them have SP ratings of 80 or higher. They are also strong on finesse, passing and hockey sense. They call games in which both teams forget defense “track meets.” Prague is like a track team with skates on and that’s how they want to play.
3. How about the defense? That’s were Prague is most beautiful. Torey Krug is a Sparta veteran who leads the pack, and behind him are five younger blueliners who can all handle a puck and button down their own zone. Dennis Cholowski just got his feet wet last season as a rookie and GM Peter Ott would love to get him and new draftee Alexander Romanov more experience, but the five players ahead of them on the depth chart are too good to move out of the lineup. They all scored betwen 32 and 36 points last season and all five can really skate. Young Miro Heiskanen has blazing speed for a defenseman and a motor that just won’t slow. He, Cholowski and Krug also have deadly slapshots, but don’t advise a forward to come sliding out to block their shots, because Heiskanen and Krug will dance around him with ease and cause your defense all sorts of problems. Krug has scored at least 11 goals in 8 of his 9 seasons for the team. He is not a big guy so he doesn’t get in many hits. That duty is left to Vladimir Roth and Mikhail Sergachev, the two men who jointly led the defensemen in points last season with 36. There are a lot of good things to say about this group of defensemen.
Rose’s Focus
“When I go to Prague games, I am going to buy two tickets, one on each side of the rink. I am bound and determined to figure out what is going on with the left wingers on the Sparta team and I will move between periods so I can be closer to the LWs when the teams change ends. Alexander Galchenyuk has off the chart puck skills and hockey sense, but his point total has dropped from 73 to 52 to 38 the last couple of seasons. My initial guess is he needs me to bake some cookies for him, but something has caused him to falter lately and I will find out what it is. When Alex is off the ice, I’ll be focused on Brady Tkachuk, another LW. Even as a fourth-liner, there is no way he should have scored just 11 points in 82 games last season. He’s too good. I expect him to get more ice time and therefore more penalty box time this season and he should at least double his point total. If he doesn’t, it’s cookie time. Again.”
