GM: Steve Yung
Coach: Michel Therrien
Last season: 8th overall. In playoffs, defeated Bratislava; lost to Munich.
Ins and Outs
(Season 16 to Season 17)
In: Filip Forsberg (free agent), Thomas Powell (trade), John Tavares (free agent), Ryan O’Reilly (free agent), Taylor Hall (free agent), Jonathan Toews (free agent), Claude Giroux (free agent), Kevin Fiala (free agent), Tomas Nosek (free agent), Jonas Holos (waivers), Gurkan Cetinkaya (free agent), Declan Bronte (free agent)
Out: Anze Kopitar (retired), Logan Couture (free agent), Evander Kane (free agent), Derek Stepan (free agent), Andrey Bykov (free agent), Brenden Dillon (waivers), Brandon Sutter (free agent), Jakob Silfverberg (free agent), Max Pacioretty (retired), Patric Hornquist (retired), Tobias Brighenti (free agent), Kevin Shattenkirk (free agent), Carson Soucy (free agent)
Potential Lineup
Filip Forsberg/John Tavares/Brendan Gallagher
Taylor Hall//Steven Stamkos/Ondrej Palat
Andre Burakovsky/Ryan O’Reilly/Thomas Powell
Artemy Panarin/Tomas Nosek/Kevin Fiala
Ken Kuusk/Alex Pietrangelo
Colton Parayko/Gurkan Cetinkaya
Declan Bronte/Kris Letang
Chris Driedger/Isak Posch
A Question
Do the Rouge Eiffels have any star players? Paris is a beautiful city and the franchise is popular and incredibly successful, so the Rouge Eiffels rarely have trouble attracting free agents. The crop they harvested this off-season reads like an all-star game lineup … or at least a lineup of an all-star game from the past. John Tavares, Claude Giroux, Jonathan Toews, Ryan O’Reilly, Filip Forsberg, Taylor Hall and Thomas Powell have all appeared in at least three all-star games each and combined, they’ve been in 43. That’s one way to get the fans’ attention, GM Steve Yung. True, they also lost some big names like Anze Kopitar and Logan Couture, but Paris fans are hoping the new old all-stars lead to a better season than the team had in Season 16, when it seemed the Rouge Eiffels were never really able to get on a long momentum roll. They were good (8th overall) but their fans were a little disappointed. One player who exceeded expectations was Steven Stamkos. Most thought he was on the way out of the exit door of his career, but he was the team’s leading scorer, his 56 assists almost equaled his best total in 8 seasons, and his +26 rating was one goal under the best he has produced in 16 seasons. This year, he’s 37 years old and we would not dare say he’s washed up. Stamkos is teammates with Tavares again, but they shouldn’t be as dynamic as they were in their Lisbon days. One area of the roster that didn’t change at all is the top 4 defensemen. Alex Pietrangelo, Ken Kuusk, Kris Letang and Colton Parayko all are back there again. They were all in the 36-52 points range and the +17 to +33 plus/minus range. Expect that foursome to be a key to the team this season, along with goalie Chris Dreidger.
Rose’s Focus
“People who know me know I love looking over team statistics on a Websim Hockey page. Give me a hot chocolate, put some Andy Williams on the turntable, and I could stare at the stats page all night long. Looking over Paris’ numbers, I raised my well-groomed eyebrows a couple of times. Paris averaged 34.2 shots per game (2nd in the league), which means their offense was really clicking last season. But their goal total was only 6th best. That tells me Paris certainly knows what to do – they should, because they are super experienced – but they aren’t executing at the same rate. Maybe we need to do some arm exercises or something in France. I can curl 10 kg with each arm, by the way. And did you know Paris was second in the league in penalty minutes? Look, guys, you have more experience than anyone so you should be more disciplined than anyone. All you’re doing is making your penalty killers expend more energy and god knows your 35-and-over crew struggles to make it to the end of every game as it is. Paris GM Steve Yung took an interesting approach to correcting that problem. He traded for Aussie Thomas Powell, age 36, who has a 44 Discipline rating. To me, that’s like signing Guybrush Threepwood as your head trainer.”
