GM: Jared Smith
Coach: Todd Reirden
Last season: 18th overall. Missed playoffs
Ins and Outs
(Season 14 to Season 15)
In: Erik Forssell (free agent), Jamie Benn (free agent), Adam Henrique (free agent), Sandro Zurkirchen (free agent), Staislav Galimov (free agent)
Out: Filip Forsberg (free agent), Fyodor Malykhin (trade), Ilya Sorokin (free agent), Travis Dermott (free agent), Connor Brown (free agent), Andrew Dickson (free agent), Jason Brancheau (free agent), Alexey Toropchenko (free agent)
Potential Lineup
Jamie Benn/Erik Forssell/Jean-Gabriel Pageau
Miks Indrasis/Adam Henrique/Clayton Keller
Casey Mittelstadt/Tomas Nosek/Oliver Björkstrand
Jesper Bratt/Nick Paul/Mathieu Joseph
Ivan Provorov/Cale Makar
Noah Hanifin/Alexis Vanier
Moritz Seider/Robin Grossman
Sandro Zurkirchen/Stanislav Galimov
Three Questions
1. What can fans in Bavaria look forward to this season? General Manager Jared Smith has given Red Bull fans perhaps the best defense corps in the league. If they aren’t the best now, they will be very soon. The top six guys on the blueline are between the ages of 21 and 28 and all of them have OV ratings of 80 or higher. Half of the group excel at the defensive end of the job, but the group is magnificent when the Red Bulls have the puck. Cale Makar, Ivan Provorov, Noah Hanifin and Moritz Seider are very skilled and creative and they will really help the forwards move up ice. Unheralded Alexis Vanier and Robin Grossman can’t really compare to the aforementioned 4, but both could play on the top pair of many other teams in the EURO League. As a group, the defensemen provide the perfect connection between the goalie position and the forwards. Perhaps we’re getting ahead of ourselves, but we’re a little anxious about how Smith is going to be able to keep this fabulous group together because 4 of the big 6 defensemen are on the final year of their Type 2 contracts. A $10 million jump in the league salary cap would make things much easier. On a different topic, we’ve noticed that league official Sepp Blatter has a meeting with Smith written in his schedule book.
2. What did the team do in the off season? The Red Bulls lost star winger Filip Forsberg – who helped them be one of the best power play teams in the league – to free agency and they traded away 40-goal man Fyodor Malykhin. But they should have a brand new leadership group thanks to what GM Jared Smith was able to do in free agency. Aside from remaking the goalie position with the acquisitions of Sandro Zurkirchen and Stanislav Galimov, he brought in veterans Jamie Benn, Adam Henrique and Erik Forssell. Benn and Henrique have been in this position before. They both went to Bratislava together as free agents two seasons ago and the Eagles promptly crashed into the ground. Munich fans hope they work better in Germany. Forssell’s legion of fans are excited to see how he will do with prime ice time. The 30-year-old speedster was held back in Berlin due to the jealousy of GM Guybrush Threepwood, who never came to terms with the fact the fans loved Forssell more than him. The centerman was used in a primarily defensive role as a Smurf and still managed 31 goals two seasons ago. He has the passing skills to help Benn hit 30 goals for the fourth time, and to help younger winger Clayton Keller reach his scoring potential if they get ice time together. Reporters say Forssell is in much better physical condition since he left Berlin’s party atmosphere and they say he has been well received by the younger players on the team who instantly looked up to him. Forssell could have gone anywhere in the league but chose Munich to be closer to Berlin, where he plans to run for mayor beginning this year. He thinks voters will adore his plan to shift the city’s tax burden from private residents to one particular pro sports team.
3. Are the goalies good enough to make Munich winners ? If Munich’s defense corps is an exclamation point, then the goalies are a collective question mark. Last season, Ilya Sorokin and Andrew Dickson averaged 3.78 goals against per game, which was sixth-worst in the league. They are gone. Sandro Zurkirchen and Stanislav Galimov, both 29, have to think they are stepping toward the chopping block. Or they could feel they are finally getting a chance to show what they can do. Swiss native Zurkirchen played six years for three teams and the most games he ever played in a season was last year when Geneva played him in 21 games. Galimov was a backup for six seasons with Helsinki and Bern, but he played in 49 games for Dublin when they were at their very worst. That year, he gave up 4.08 goals per game, but the Dublin defense was nothing compared to the current Red Bulls defense. Galimov’s career save percentage is 88.1 and Zurkirchen’s is 86.8. They will need to do better to stay with the Munich team past this season.
Rose’s Focus
“I’m interested in seeing how the team will do without Filip Forsberg and Fyodor Malykhin. With them, they had a 22.1 efficiency rating on the powerplay, which tied them for the league league. Together, they accounted for 70 goals during the season. Forsberg used his 30 goals to try to pry money from GMs in free agency and Madrid signed him for $9.6 million. Malykhin went in a trade with Minsk in which Munich retained almost $4.7 million of his salary. You might think that move questionable, but you don’t put as much thought into things as I do. You tend to be distracted by sports on TV, pretty women and your families. Not me. When I think, I think in overdrive until the thinking is done. My theory about Munich is the defensemen are so damn good, they help whatever forwards are on the ice with them at the time. My calculations show that Forsberg and Malykhin would have combined for nearly 20 goals fewer with the average defense corps behind them. So I think it was a good move to let the high-priced forwards escape and keep the defense intact.”
