What Was and What Is

[der meister 3,122]

Ryuji Sakamoto's decision to join the Warsaw Predators was not one that was made easily or lightly. I watched Sakamoto struggle with the decision for days, watched as he paced around his home just outside of Seattle, Washington; I even went walking with him outside in the Redmond Barrens and listened to him argue with himself about his options. Truth be told, I was also there to make sure that he did not stray into The Jump House, the wretched little dive bar with an exceedingly seedy underbelly.

 

I'm not going to get into the specifics of what teams made offers to Sakamoto. I will say that he received phone calls from approximately half a dozen franchises across North America and Europe. One offer that I will get into slightly more detail about involved him changing from a defenseman into a power forward type player, an idea which, surprisingly, he gave a considerable amount of thought.

As the process played out, he narrowed down his options to two teams, including Warsaw. An unexpected offer came in late that briefly made him consider a third potential team. Ultimately, however, he made his choice, in part I expect, due to his lack of familiarity with the city of Warsaw and Poland in general. After the chaos of last season, it's not particularly surprising that Sakamoto decided that he wanted to start fresh big way.

 

So far this season, Warsaw is a below average team. There have been some moments of brilliance, and Sakamoto has put up some decent individual statistics so far this young season. Never a particularly offensive player, he still finds himself above a half a point per game pace, along with numbers in both hits and block shots that rank him just outside the top 10 in League leaders in those categories.

 

Unfortunately, it appears that by and large the Warsaw Predators are not winning any games unless the top line is scoring. Lack of offensive depth has certainly hampered Warsaw so far in this young season. The top line of Johnny Xavier centering Mikhail Kovalchuk and Girts Galvins have combined for 24 of Warsaw's 42 goals, and both wingers are at a point per game so far. As a counterpoint, the second line featuring Tim Riggins and Tom Creeg has 7 total. For his part, Sakamoto has 3 goals and 10 assists, and seems to be developing some intriguing chemistry with Kovalchuk and Galvins.

 

In an interesting side note, around this point last season, Sakamoto would be traded for the second time in as many months, as he prepared to move from Vancouver to Helsinki. In 20 games with the Vancouver Wolves, Sakamoto had only a single goal and 11 assists.

 

From a journalist's perspective, there don't appear to be any rumblings this time around that would indicate any kind of departure from Warsaw. While the success on the ice is relatively infrequent, the team is growing, building chemistry on and off the ice, and generally seems to like each other and get along. I never really got any kind of impression of the various teams on which Sakamoto spent time last year. This season definitely feels different, and that can only be a positive.
 

In the distance, the home of the Predators