Teemu Hartikainen is rumored to Luleå, but it’s hard to get one’s hopes up with all the disappointing news of late. No Omark, no Wallmark, no Cehlarik, the club seems to have gotten too cute trying to save a few reichsthalers with Lepistö and scared him off to Switzerland. We had the best defensive group in the playoffs, and Sellgren (knock on wood) is a nice replacement for Lepistö, but it would have been insane had we had both for next season.
At any rate, we need not one but two top tier forwards, and everyone we’ve hoped for has gone another route. Why can’t we manage to outdo Swiss teams for Wallmark and Cehlarik, after a 7 game finals run, with Omark and Lepistö’s salaries freed up, healthy financials and Minecraft money? Goddamn legionnaires!
Goaltending is another question mark. If Lassinantti’s healthy, there’s no issue, but Wallstedt’s replacement is an untested 20 year old with a good year for a weak team in Allsvenskan. This seems very hit or miss: will he be another Johan Gustafsson, or another Niklas Rubin or Daniel Bellissimo where we’ll have to ride our starter like a mule?
But the forward group is the big issue. On paper, we have nice depth, but problem is that’s always been the case and other so called top teams have always had the distinct edge, with the difference this year being Omark. He solved so much of the mediocrity, inconsistency and bluntness of our offense, and Andreasson emerged a supreme finisher to compliment Omark’s game in a beautiful way (before slowly disappearing/losing his mojo from the semifinals onward).
Let’s hope Hartikainen will be our next super Finn (knock on wood), that Mattsson, Muzik, Nikupeteri can take another step or two in development, perhaps that Locmelis or another junior breaks in and shows superstar potential, and crucially, that Komarek heals up and plays up to par, that Einar buried his woeful regular season forever and continues on like he did in the finals, and then we should be able to get back to — dare I say — the semifinals? We’ll probably even have a team that can go all the way in the CHL, yippee…