GM: Carl Choiniere
Coach: Dave Hakstol
Last season: 8th overall. In playoffs, lost to Minsk
Ins and Outs
(Season 15 to Season 16)
In: Radek Faksa (trade), Alexandre Carrier (free agent), Teuvo Teravainen (trade), Yegor Chinakhov (waivers), Eddie Lack (free agent), Matthew Highmore (free agent)
Out: Pavel Buchnevich (free agent), Mike Hoffman (free agent), Cory Schneider (retired)
Potential Lineup
Calvin Thurkauf/Connor McDavid/Alex Debrincat
Radek Faksa/Sam Bennett/Andreas Johnson
Thomas Spelling/Martin Necas/Teuvo Teravainen
Yegor Chinakhov/Ties Van Soest/Nikita Kucherov
Viktor Antipin/Zach Werenski
Jake Moverare/Stefan Ulmer
Alexandre Carrier/Roman Josi
Matt Murray/Eddie Lack
A Question
What do they have, and what do they need? What they have is what all good Outlaws have always needed: speed. Oslo has eight skaters whose Speed attribute is 94 or higher. That makes them faster than every other team in the league and also faster than 27 countries that will compete in the next Olympic speed skating championship. (Made that last part up.) Defensemen Viktor Antipin and Zach Werenski are both 100s, so good luck beating them to a loose puck or negating an icing call. Oslo also has the top-ranked player in the whole league. That’s probably worth two checkmarks in the plus column. Goalie Matt Murray had the highest save percentage of anyone last season, just as he did in Season 12. What Oslo players need most of all is a deep playoff run so they can convince themselves they can compete for the Cup. Right now, their collective confidence level is low, and for good reason. Even though they have flirted with the President’s Trophy the last five years, they can’t seem to get over a certain hump. No, we’re not talking about the one in Rose’s back. The Outlaws have been bounced from the playoffs in the first round 4 times in the last 5 years. The only year they got past the first round was in Season 12, but they exited six games later, courtesy of Belfast.
Rose’s Focus
“Thank God Oslo General Manager Carl Choiniere finally stopped courting me. He’s persistent, I’ll give him that, but I mean really, how many ways can I say I’m not interested? He was exhausting. And somewhat oblivious. Does he think I missed what he did to Tyler Seguin? The star center was someone Choiniere loved – or so it seemed – yet he traded him away the minute something younger came along. I am not going to be his next Tyler Seguin, even though the trade worked out really well for Tyler. It was a monumental trade before last season that seemed to help both teams. Helsinki gave up younger stars for veterans Seguin and Jonathan Toews and they wound up winning the Cup. Oslo got Alex Debrincat and Sam Bennett in exchange and they should really add to the offense for the next couple years at least. Debrincat is a sharpshooter and he couldn’t ask for a better center to play with than Connor McDavid. I can’t see Debrincat scoring fewer than 35 goals per year the next few seasons as an Outlaw. Bennett will center the second line. When he came to Oslo, he was fresh off an atypical dream of a season when he scored 121 points (with an incredible 84 assists) and was the league’s leading scorer. Expectations were super high, like I was after that Genesis concert in 1977. Playing just 15 minutes a game behind McDavid, Bennett’s point total dropped to 62, but c’mon, that’s a second line center scoring 62 points! Oslo got some good return on that trade.”
