GM: David Bell
Coach: Willie Desjardins
Last season: 20th overall. Did not make playoffs.
Ins and Outs
(Season 16 to Season 17)
In: Logan Couture (free agent), Brock McGinn (free agent), Rudolfs Balcers (free agent)
Out: Ryan O’Reilly (free agent), Filip Sveningsson (free agent), Sonny Milano (free agent), Josh Morrissey (free agent), Ryan McDonogh (free agent), Jayce Hawryluk (free agent), Maxim Sushko (free agent)
Potential Lineup
Matthew Tkachuk/Aapeli Rasanen/Robby Fabbri
Jason Robertson/Dominic Canic/Alex Tuch
Brock McGinn/Logan Couture/Seth Jarvis
Jesper Boqvist/Ryan McLeod/J.J. Peterka
Ryan Pulock/Evan Bouchard
Dylan Samberg/Marcus Pettersson
Pavel Mintyukov/Justin Barron
Keith Petruzzelli/Akira Schmid
A Question:
Can Milan continue going up? It’s difficult to find a goalie who can be your starter year in and year out. There have been examples of net-minders who are capable of sustaining their concentration and good play (Alexander Salak and Braden Holtby come to mind) and Milan used to have one in Andrew Hammond. When he played back there, the playoffs were a regular thing in Italy. They even climbed to 4th overall in Season 11 with “Il Hamburgerscassinatore” in goal. Those were the days. Milan was a tight-knit group – mainly from fear. They knew that if they dared try to leave the team that Don Vito Campana (David Bell) would start cutting off horses’ heads and leaving them in beds. See “The Godfather” if you don’t get that reference. Great movie. But Hammond left for free agency four seasons ago, wasn’t involved in any fatal accidents, and things haven’t been the same around the table for the team’s Sunday pasta dinners. Keith Petruzzelli is trying – and he may get there yet – but he hasn’t been consistently solid back there in goal. Still, he’s young – just 25. Let’s not take him for a ride into the country just yet. You can’t pin the entire thing on one guy, can you? If you look at the defensemen in front of him, it looks like the plan is to groom the younger guys to take over the operation in the near future. Four of the six defenseman on the team are 25 or younger. That could lead to some leaky defense in the short-term, but if Evan Bouchard, Pavel Mintyukov and the others can stay together for a few seasons, they could gel into that formidable blueline corps every team should want.
Rose’s Focus
“Hockey is about physics and math – things like angles, velocity, force … what am I doing? You guys will never understand it like I do. Let me try to simplify it for you: think of a goal as a plus and a goal against you as a minus. If you add those up over the course of a game and it’s a positive number, you win, If it’s negative, you … anybody? … Marty? … Jason? … OK, I’ll tell you. You lose. Milan has a math problem and let’s see if we can help them solve it. They give up too many goals (minuses) so to get their total over zero, they need to what? … Igor? … Neil? … OK, asking you guys is getting us nowhere. They need to score more goals. Fortunately, they have the players who could do that including their two top centers who are not well known but very talented. Aapeli Rasanen and Dom Canic are two of the very best passers in the league and last year, they combined for 56 goals themselves. The key for Milan is for their wingers to get open for good scoring opportunities. Alex Tuch, Keith Tkachuk, Jason Robertson and Robby Fabbri, I’m looking at you guys. We’re going to need all of you to shoot for the 30-goal plateau. You are all capable of reaching it. Yes, Steve Yung? Uh huh, I’m sure you did know that. Good boy.”
