GM: Neil Taylor
Coach: Jacques Martin
Last season: 23rd overall. Missed playoffs
Ins and Outs
(Season 16 to Season 17)
In: Par Arlbrandt (free agent), Seth Jones (free agent), Karri Ramo (waivers), Alexander Galchenyuk (free agent), Brendan Perlini (free agent), Linus Hogberg (free agent), Sonny Milano (free agent), Liam Kirk (free agent), Blake Lizotte (free agent)
Out: Dmitry Orlov (free agent), Victor Rask (free agent), Mason Marchment (free agent), Viktor Arvidsson (free agent), Reid Boucher (free agent), Adam Lowry (free agent), Jiri Sekac (free agent), Kyle Palmieri (free agent), Kevin Clark (free agent), Nathan Bastien (free agent)
Potential Lineup
Alexander Galchenyuk/Valentin Nussbaumer/Par Arlbrandt
Tyson Jost/Tim Stutzle/Jordan Kyrou
Liam Kirk/Cole Sillinger/Brendan Perlini
Noah Cates/Blake Lizotte/Owen Tippett
Seth Jones/Layne Viveiros
Sean Durzi/J.J. Moser
Simon Gnyp/Linus Hogberg
Carl Lindbom/Jake Oettinger
A Question
Is the future now in Liverpool? The franchise moved from Hanover, Germany, to Liverpool, England in the off-season and there seems to be a lot of energy that wasn’t around for the last few years. The Boss Scousers, as they are now called, are filled with youth and several of them are high-potential youths thanks mainly to poor finishes in the past. We’re talking about goalies Carl Lindbom and Jake Oettinger, centers Valentin Nussbuamer, Tim Stutzle and Cole Sillinger, and others. But their time to really shine is certainly not Season 17. They have experience to gain before they can put together the wins Merseyside fans are dreaming of already. But new GM Neil Taylor seems to want to shake up the dressing room and he’s made some big changes that could see the team start that upward climb. How about signing Par Arlbrandt as a free agent? The little winger almost won a EURO Cup a few months ago with Minsk and he has another year or two of good hockey in him at age 33. He’s certainly an upgrade for the Liverpool franchise. He and other free agent signings Seth Jones, Alexander Galchenyuk and Brendan Perlini are instantly among the very best players on a team that was hung out to dry by a previous GM a few seasons ago. Jones is a solid defenseman for any team, Galchenyuk was a top-line wing for Prague for the last 11 seasons, and beefy Perlini proved two seasons ago he can score goals from the slot on the powerplay. The biggest question fans have is why did Taylor pick up Karri Ramo off waivers when Liverpool seems committed to Carl Lindbom and Jake Oettinger in goal? The answer could be in the team’s enormous cap space. Ramo’s $3.6 million salary barely put a dent in it and Liverpool still had to add almost $3 million in salary to the pro and scratch teams to avoid a penalty for not reaching the league’s salary cap floor of $68.32 million.
Rose’s Focus
“Last season in this space, I called your attention to Layne Viveiros, a 28-year-old Austrian defenseman who I said was good. Speaking of good, man, am I good! Viveiros was the lone holdover in a blueline purge in Hanover just before the season. How did he handle the glare of the spotlight I shined on him? Like a real pro. Despite an injury that kept him out of 13 games – I’m sure the Smurfs had something to do with that – Viveiros saw his plus/minus go from -26 to -9 and he had his best offensive season by a mile, scoring 42 points. He also saw his blocked shots total go up about 30 and his hits go up about 40, and don’t forget he was injured for a while thanks, probably, to the thugs in Berlin. I love the guy. And I bet Liverpool’s goalies love him too. In his career, Viveiros has gone from being a Dynamo, to a Giant, to a Scorpion to a Boss Scouser, begging the question, what the hell is a boss scouser? According to my Googling machine … ‘A boss scouser refers to someone from Liverpool (a scouser) who is considered excellent, great or amazing, as boss is a common slang term in Liverpool used to describe something very positive or good; essentially, it means a really great person from Liverpool.’ I think Viveiros qualifies as a Boss Scouser.”
