Geneva general manager Joonas Komppa went all in. After all the intrigue and worrying, free agent goalie Kari Lehtonen will stay in a Generals sweater for a long time, making the maximum $9 million per year with a player option for the fourth year. But a few other general managers made news as well this…
These have been nerve-racking days for Kari Lehtonen, the outstanding goalie for the Geneva Generals. Lehtonen’s contract is up and his future is the biggest news this week in the EURO League. The Finn is generally regarded as one of the three top goalies in the league with Pekka Rinne of St. Petersburg and Jonathan…
With Copenhagen’s selection of Nick Petan, the EURO League draft is complete and hockey knowledge will now take a back seat to financial wizardry. An even 100 players are Type 3, unrestricted free agents. Some, like 33-year-old Jim Vandermeer and 32-year-old Rick Dipietro, have never played for a EURO team and will probably not get…
The EURO League’s Season 3 draft is into the third round, with pickings slim and many teams gambling on prospects without attributes. Of the 24 picks in the second round and the first 6 of the third round, 11 prospects have been selected. The most recent were Kerby Rychel, now of Helsinki (see below) and…
(Note: Igor Kirunov (Minsk) corrected something I wrote Friday, pointing out prospects won’t get their attributes until after the NHL season is complete, meaning they will not be available this EURO season even if they hit 40 games played before our mid-season evolution. Of course, if you GMs want, we could delay the start of…
Braden Holtby is the biggest news in London since Prince George. Holtby might not have made quite as much noise upon arrival as the royal baby did, but he’s way better at stopping 90 mph pucks. The goalie was the first pick of the EURO League draft. He will probably start his EURO career as…
The EURO League’s Season 3 draft could be a week away, which means players like Braden Holtby, Brendan Gallagher and Nathan MacKinnon will know which languages they will have to start learning. The season is supposed to start Wednesday, but the draft will not be held until a day or two after all teams have…
Here is a look at how the new champions of the EURO league – Les Rouges Eiffels de Paris – were constructed by GM Ralph Booth. Five starters on the team were acquired during the season in 5 separate trades, 4 of them with Stockholm. In the league’s initial draft, Paris picked in the middle…
Teemu Selanne won’t be speeding around the ice in a Gothenburg sweater any more. Daniel Alfredsson has traded a lockerroom in Milan for a rocking chair his family’s home in native Sweden, and Jaromir Jagr has retired from Belfast and hockey. And one of the best defensemen ever, Nicklas Lidstrom, has hung up the skates…
There couldn’t have been a more exciting finish to a season. Game 6 of the EURO Cup finals was seconds away from going into overtime when Joffrey Lupul wired a shot through Pekka Rinne to win the second-ever EURO Cup for Paris. There were 4 seconds left on the clock at the time. Les Rouges…
