GM: Peter Ott
Coach: Paul MacLean
Last season: 21st overall. Missed playoffs
Ins and Outs
(Season 17 to Season 18)
In: Filip Hronek (trade), Emil Bemstrom (trade), Roger Karrer (trade), Ilya Samsonov (trade),
Out: Brady Tkachuk (trade), Bowen Byram (trade), Cole Perfetti (trade)
Potential Lineup
Nail Yakupov/Mika Zibanejad/Robert Thomas
Phillip Schultz/Connor Bedard/Emil Bemstrom
Michael Rasmussen/Miro Aaltonen/Arthur Kaliyev
Klim Kostin/Matteo Gennaro/Josh Doan
Mikhail Sergachev/Roger Karrer
Filip Hronek/Miro Heiskanen
Dennis Cholowski/Alexander Romanov
Andrei Vasilevskiy/Ilya Samsonov
A Question
How far will the changes go? Prague fans had higher expectations than their 21st place finish in Season 17 and they started clamoring for changes. Management seems to have heard them. But how far will General Manager Peter Ott and new coach Paul MacLean be willing to go with the changes? Will the trades that brought in Berlin Smurfs Filip Hronek, Roger Karrer and Ilya Samsonov and Kosice’s Emil Bemstrom be the extent of the change? Or will they shuffle their longstanding lines, move one of the five excellent centermen to wing, and give Connor Bedard the ball to run with on the top line? Mika Zibanejad looked old last season for the first time ever. He played in just 57 games and for the first time in 8 seasons, he coughed up the puck more times than he stole it. Bedard, on the other hand, had a very impressive turnover rate – 106 takeaways to 57 giveaways – in only his second season. He scored 56 points at 16 minutes of ice time per game and only eight players in the league who played 16 minutes scored more points than he did. Teammate Miro Aaltonen was one of those eight players and his experience makes another good option as a top line center. On defense, Prague has put together an excellent – scary even – group of players who can do a decent job in their own end and a really good job in your end. Look for Karrer to win over lots of Czech fans this season now that he is free of the distraction of Berlin’s sometimes overly aggressive cheerleaders.
Rose’s Focus
“Nail Yakupov paid me another visit this off season. He can’t seem to get my pierogis off his mind. But he looked noticeably exhausted and anxious. ‘What’s on your mind this time, my young friend?’ I asked him. Last season, I knew he would struggle once the team let his bff Alexander Galchenyuk leave for another team and I thought that was the problem. It was, but there was more. He said he was very happy with the ice time he got on the top line, and he was satisfied with his play (more than 20 goals and 50 points for the 12th time in his career). Nail’s next comment surprised me. He said, ‘I am starting to get good at defensive hockey. I want to ask the coach to let me play as a defenseman.’ I thought that would be a sensationally bad idea and I tried to break it to him easily. I said, ‘Well, you are good at everything. Let’s look at what Prague needs most from their star player. The team has six excellent defensemen this year whose OV ratings are all 79 or higher. Not many teams have such quality on the blueline. Your OV rating would be 43. The fans would yell at you every game.’ He looked as if he was staring through the wall. ‘I don’t want that. I like it more when they cheer for me.’ I could see that I was starting to get through to him again. I told him five of those six Prague defensemen are excellent at creating offense for the forwards and it would be nice if once they worked the puck up ice there was a good player in front of the net who they could pass to. ‘OK,’ he said, ‘I see what you are saying. I will stay on the wing and work on my goaltending skills between games. You know, for next season.’ I smiled and said ‘Yep. That’s exactly what I’m saying. Take some pierogis home with you.'”
