GM: Martin Sayle
Coach: Ken Hitchcock
Last season: 4th overall. In playoffs, defeated Oslo; lost to Helsinki
Ins and Outs
(Season 17 to Season 18)
In: Matt Murray (trade), Alex Debrincat (trade), Jean-Gabriel Pageau (free agent), Tyler Myers (free agent), Benedikt Bruckner (free agent), Nikita Zaitsev (free agent), Simon Hjalmarsson (free agent), Alex Wennberg (free agent), Calle Jarnkrok (free agent), Blake Coleman (free agent), Philipp Kurashev (free agent), Teddy Blueger (free agent)
Out: Alexander Aitken (free agent), Curtis Lazar (waivers), Eliezer Sherbatov (free agent), Dougie Hamilton (free agent), Joonas Korpisalo (free agent), Tyson Foerster (trade), Tyler Ennis (free agent), Ryan Spooner (free agent), Josh Anderson (free agent), Olen Zellweger (trade), Travis Hamonic (retired), Jakub Petrazalek (free agent)
Potential Lineup
Alex Debrincat/Auston Matthews/Marko Dano
Boone Jenner/Anton Lundell/Jean-Gabriel Pageau
Nils Höglander/Erik Forssell/Joakim Hillding
Blake Coleman/Michael McLeod/Ridley Greig
Jacob Trouba/K’Andre Miller
Nikita Voles/Alexander Weiss
Benedikt Bruckner/Brandon Carlo
Matt Murray/Devon Levi
A Question
Copenhagen, at least in the EURO League, is generally a quiet place. In most off seasons, you will see one big transaction, maybe two. Players spend a lot of time with the same faces and the theory is that builds unity and trust. However, the franchise that has won the EURO Cup on three occasions had an atypical upheaval this summer. The contracts of 10 Copenhagen forwards and two defensemen expired this off season. A key figure in the lineup, top-line left winger Alexander Aitken stabbed his old friend Martin Sayle in the back and decided to test free agency. So Sayle went out and got another Alex (Debrincat) to replace him. In that trade, he also upgraded his goaltending by prying Matt Murray out of Oslo, which was his home for a decade. Murray is accustomed to playing 70 games per season and he has a 2.89 career goals against average to go with a save percentage of 90.6, which coincidentally is what it was last season. At age 32, Murray should have plenty of gas in the tank and Sayle signed him to what seems like a real bargain at $4.8 million for one year. He replaces a pretty good one in Joonas Korpisalo, who won one EURO Cup in his four seasons with Copenhagen. Murray will have plenty of help out there. Defense was the strength of the Tridents last season. They placed third in the league in goals against and that was due to the work of more than just the goalie. They played strong defense throughout the lineup and were second in the league in shots against. They also spent a lot of time in the other end of the rink getting off the most shots in the league, averaging 34.7 per game. Auston Matthews (6th in the league in shots) and Marko Dano (13th) led the way in that department and both are back on the top line.
Rose’s Focus
“I like talking about Marty. That’s what I call Martin Sayle, who is the Copenhagen Tridents’ GM. We’ve spent a lot of good times together over the last 16 or so seasons. You all know him too and you might have noticed that his second and third lines have been the team’s strength for a good eight or nine seasons now. It seems every season, some of the best plus/minus players on the team and the league come from the forward lines that follow the Auston Matthews line. Especially now that Marty has reclaimed Jean-Gabriel Pageau as a free agent, I have a nagging, relentless feeling that the Tridents’ success rests on the play of lines centered by Anton Lundell and team captain Erik Forssell. Although, it’s possible that feeling is from the Taco Bell Marty bought for me on our late lunch date. But this season, I’m looking at a different part of the Tridents lineup. I am very intrigued by Marty’s hind end. By that I mean his bottom. The third defense pairing, that is, in case I was stumbling through my words for some reason. Is it hot in here? At this point in the off season, it appears German Benedikt Bruckner, 31, was brought in through free agency to work with veteran Brandon Carlo. That’s a stunner and I wonder if it’s some sort of diversion; for a pending acquisition perhaps. Farm club D-man Michael Matheson has much more experience, but he costs more than a million dollars more than Bruckner and Matheson’s salary would have Copenhagen tickling the cap. I like being tickled but Marty is all about dollars and numbers. It’s a real downer some evenings. Bruckner is OK defensively, he moves well and thinks a good game, but he has only played one full season (for Lisbon) and he hasn’t played a EURO League game since six seasons ago. If he remains in the lineup, this will be the most interesting move Marty has made since he offered to apply sunscreen around my lips that January night 13 years ago.
