September 23 2018
With the summer league in the rear view mirror and the preseason upon us the press has gathered to hear what the GM of Victoria has to say about the franchise for the upcoming season. If you recall in a previous discussion a lifetime season ticket holder told the GM that his moves had made his children cry. That comment seems to have struck a cord and the team has since moved in a different direction than had been the standard operating procedure.
“Welcome everyone.
Its nice to see so many familiar faces as well as some new ones here in beautiful supernatural British Columbia. So lets dive in right away and get started. Firstly I want to say that the Ronin have valued Alexander Radulov both as a player and a person. Throughout the years our hockey club never doubted his intention to return to the NHL. We have kept him on the payroll for quite a few seasons in the anticipation of his return but the time had come to part ways with him. We worked out a deal with the Musicmen and included Alex in the discussions as we wanted him to be happy with the deal as well. The Ronin can think of fewer high quality franchise than that in Dayton, so in this regard this was an easy deal to do. We simply had to stick to our guns and make our demands clear to them.
The two players coming back to us in Taylor Raddysh & Morgan Frost are, we hope going to be a major part of a renewed vision for the team over the next few seasons. While its quite likely that they will not make the team this season we have plans centered around them. They are part of the Ronin family and we no plans to entertain moving them at any point in the future. So welcome to both Morgan and Taylor.
The team will most certainly miss Rads and we wish him all the best with his new team. Having said that there are a number of other deals we made that cut from the same cloth. Today we agreed to send Gustav Forsling to Sudbury in exchange for Dennis Yan. Dennis fits the new mold we want to shape our club into, so welcome to Dennis.
The club has also traded Alexander Wennberg to Capeside in exchange for prospects Jonah Gadjovich and Thomas Novak. While it was hard to part with Alex, we also knew that there really wasn't enough space on the roster to fit him in to a role that he would excel at. Far better for both him and our team to move him somewhere he can flourish. Welcome to both Thomas and Jonah.
We also agreed to bring in Mika Zibanejad which cost us a very good player in Ryan Nugent Hopkins. However premier centers do not become available everyday and we thought it important to make this move to give us a solid 1 – 2 punch with Evgeni Kuznetsov down the middle. Part of the reason this deal became possible was a previous trade we made with Sudbury for Brendan Saad. Yes it cost us a first round pick, which is a very high price, but Brendan is an established NHL player, still quite young and likely looking to prove himself after a poor season by his own standards. The Ronin are committed to Brendan and have helped him buy a home here on the island. This move allowed the team enough flexibility to make the Nugent-Hopkins deal. Both Mika and Brendan have something to prove both to themselves, the fans and the team. We are going to give them every opportunity to get that done.
We have also picked up another solid winger in Anthony Duclair from Sudbury. Anthony knows what is expected of him and we will tolerate nothing less than a complete effort especially in the offseason. Both he and Mika are known to have tested very poorly at the start of camp, so it will be struggle this year to reach the levels they had established for themselves.
Previous to that and after some extensive discussions with Fort Erie, we managed to acquire Tyler Myers. Once again we gave up some futures in picks, but we felt that with our team makeup at present we needed more veteran presence in the locker room and out on the ice. Tyler being a former Ronin was well known to us so we jumped at the opportunity to bring him back to the family.
We also picked up Lucas Johansen from Fonthill for Filip Larsson and Nick Shore. While we think the world of Filip, there is clearly a quite a few promising young netminders in the system and we felt it prudent to move him to bring in a possible NHL defensemen in Lucas. Nic, on the other hand, did a fine job for us last season and we wish him well.
In another deal, Sudbury (see a pattern here) sent us Dan O'Regan for a 3rd round pick. We liked what we saw in Dan and feel our team can always use that kind of player. Its a franchise depth move and we hope to see Dan in the NHL at some point in the near future.
The team has also added Tristan Jarry to the club. We think the world of this kid and believe he could challenge for the starting job as soon as this season in the NHL. Additional deals included Thomas Chabot whom we have long coveted. Thomas knows his value to us and should be a contributing member in short fashion. Victor Rask was picked up to fill the bottom six checking & pk role. Victor knows what is expected of him and it saddened us to hear of his injury just a week ago. Another new name is Brett Howden who adds his skillset to an increasingly deep pool of prospects. The team moved Jay Bouwmeester, picking up Caleb Jones in the deal that also included former Ronin Ryan Getzlaf who was resigned and flipped to Springfield for a 1st round pick. Prior to that Julius Honka came over in a deal that included Tristan Jarry, who since has come full circle.
This has probably been far too long of a discussion but we wanted to document the changes that have occurred to the team and to promise the fans of our determination to do things “the right way” this time around.
We wish you all well!
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