GM: Bryan Camara
Coach: Kris Knoblauch
Last season: 7th overall. In playoffs, defeated Prague, lost to Bern
Ins and Outs
(Season 18 to Season 19)
In: Brandon Hagel (trade), Noah Laba (draft), Dennis Hildeby (trade)
Out: Brandon Montour (free agent), Robin Lehner (free agent), Shane Pinto (trade), Zachary L’Heureaux (waivers), Artjoms Lapiks (trade),
Potential Lineup
Max Domi/Mat Barzal/Artturi Lehkonen
Gabriel Landeskog/Trevor Zegras/Spencer Smallman
Brandon Hagel/Logan Cooley/Andrei Kuzmenko
Vladislav Saiko/Noah Laba/Tyler Bertuzzi
John Marino/Staffan Kronwall
Joel Nystrom/Josh Morrissey
Axel Sandin-Pellikka/Zayne Parekh
Jakub Kovar/Jacob Fowler
A Question
Can Lisbon stay in the top half of the league? Lisbon made a nice move up the standings in Season 18, improving 19 team points and going from 15th the year before to 7th. That’s where Lisbon fans have been more accustomed to seeing their boys. From Season 5 to 13, they were in the top half of the standings 7 times. They recently ended a slow period where they were in the bottom half for four straight seasons. Now the dust has settled and the team has achieved the forward momentum they were trying for. But opponents know if they can somehow clamp down on the duo of Mathew Barzal and Max Domi, they have a decent chance of beating Lisbon. Coach Kris Knoblauch has plenty of wingers he can mix and match with Mat and Max and early indications are 33-year-old Artturi Lehkonen will start on the top line, even though Spencer Smallman, also 33, scored 37 goals and saw his plus/minus rise from -4 to +37 while playing top line minutes last year. And the coaching staff says third-liner Andrei Kuzmenko is the best pure shooter among the team’s right wingers. So any of those three right wingers could end up on that line. Speaking of that side of the lineup, Tyler Bertuzzi was a second-line player not too long ago and he’s looking at fourth-line minutes as the season begins. That’s a good sign that Knoblauch’s depth problem is a thing of the past. Veteran Gabriel Landeskog, 37, was given a lighter workload last season for the first time in his career (he was the first player ever drafted into the EURO League) and he still has plenty of life in those legs. So don’t sleep on the second line which has exciting Trevor Zegras at center. Still, Lisbon will be a team that is super dangerous when they have the puck and vulnerable when their opponents have possession. The drafting of Noah Laba helps with that issue a bit and gives them a penalty killer if they want to entrust him with that job. Currently the bottom defense pair is a team weakness regardless of which two of five possible names get plugged in there. If Lisbon is challenging for a Cup near the trade deadline, that might change.
Rose’s Focus
“Lisbon general manager Bryan Camara has done some weird things in his time at the helm in Portugal. The first was moving the team there from Frankfurt, although I have to admit the squid dishes in Portugal are much better than German squid. Then there was Season 11, when he and that floozy who tended bar at Spot Lisboa went on their around-the-world cruise. The team and Good Old Rosie? We were simply forgotten about for a year. Not bitter. Now, Mr. Camara is trying to collect every goalie in the league whose first name sounds like Jake. Robin Lehner was allowed to leave and the new netminders are Jakub Kovar and young Jacob Fowler, with Jakub Dobes on the farm club. Kovar recorded a winning record in his first year with Lisbon last season and it was his first winning season since his rookie year with Edinburgh back in Season 5. But at age 35, one would have to think he’s in the Just Hanging On as a Starter stage of his career. Lehner’s only chance of staying in Lisbon for a fourth season in a row would have been to change his name to Jake or Jacoby or Jaccabelio or something like that. He didn’t, and he’s now in Estonia of all places. The All Goalies Must Be Named Jake theory has never been proven to work, but if I know my Bryan, he won’t feel comfortable until he signs Jack Campbell as a free agent and pries Jake Oettinger from Liverpool somehow. “
