Turku Outlaws Ready for Season 38.
The Turku Outlaws were among Europe's top VHLM teams last season. They finished the year in second place in Europe and made it to the conference finals before being eliminated by the Bern Royals in a hard fought six game series. As is the usual way of things, the turn around on the Outlaws roster is immense and it really is a new team with new faces heading in to this season. They are led by veteran winger Dexter Morgan, a Helsinki prospect, as well as Dimothenis Vlasis, a Cologne product. Their team captain is likely to be either Morgan or Kez Kincaid, a centre men who is a Season 37 draftee and a fan favorite. There is a lot of hype around the team surrounding two Season 39 draftees, Milos Denis and Koji Yamazaki, both of whom are among the top 10 prospects for the upcoming draft. The Outlaws are a solid team, and expectations are high in Finland.
Despite a solid roster on offense and on defense, goaltending is an obvious flaw on the team and they will be trying their best to add a goalie through trade or through the waiver process during the season. Currently, the team has Fernando Pergher and Matti Auvinen, both of whom are undrafted prospect and neither of whom seemingly have much of a future in the VHL ranks. This could be the undoing of an otherwise good team and a serious decision awaits the team's General Manager in that obviously acquiring a solid goaltender would cost the team draft choices or a current roster player.
One player that may attract some interest from other GM's are Denis himself and Braxton Hunter. Both are Season 39 draftees and guys who, depending on their trajectory and who drafts them in the next off season, may spend another season in the minors. It is far from a guarantee that Denis or Hunter will suit up in the VHLM next year, but out of any movable pieces on the roster, those two are the most likely ones to be of interest to team's looking to compete next season. Denis is a skilled player who attracts interest from fans due to his explosive style of play as well as his explosive skating style that gives him more than his fair share of breakaways. Hunter on the other hand is a big body presence who has a solid shot and is more of a two way forward. In a word, he is a much more complete player and one who you want to build a team around more so than Denis. He is a strong leader and the kind of player who can lead a team in the battle, although he does seem to lack of the ability to take over a game that the Slovakian has.
This is all for naught because for now, Denis and Hunter are both members of the Outlaws, and are hoping to make a contribution now in order to impress VHL GM's. The following is an early look at their lines in their practice this past week in getting ready for the upcoming season.
Dexter Morgan - Kez Kincaid - Milos Denis
Walt Pringle - Mikael Svensson - Braxton Hunter
Kristoffer Ruud - Antoine Sauve - Joseph Baker
Dimothenis Vlasis - Koji Jamazaki
Jacob Peterson - Dimothenis Vlasis
Fernando Pergher
Matti Auvinen
It is clear to everyone that the team has a lack of depth on defense and poor goaltending. However, with high end talent on the blue line as well as solid depth on defense, the team is likely to have solid success, especially in the regular season. At this point in time, Turku appears to be one of the top European clubs, if not the best at this point. It will be very interesting to see how the new group of Outlaws will compete and play with each other, though one thing is for sure, like usual things are going to be interesting and explosive in the VHLM this year.
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