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Jonathan Drouin trying to put his career back on track in Tilburg

TILBURG, The Netherlands - REBUILDING THE MACHINE

Not much was expected from the Tilburg Trappers last season, yet the team led by coach Bill Peters surprised many. The Trappers qualified for the playoffs and eliminated the Mustangs before falling victim to Conference Champions Gander Slapshots in a tight series.

Lacking true super stars Peters constructed a hard-to-beat machine that was built around a gritty team effort day-in, day out.

With the off-season on full swing, the main question was whether the Trappers would go out an add some star power to their line-up or continue to build from within and construct a new machine to cover for the various losses to UFA.

After one week of Free Agency, the answer is clear: Trappers' fans will again only be seeing super stars in opposing uniforms as the team announced it has finished its Free Agency buying with only low key acquisitions, leaving a vast 20 million left in cap space on top of a roster that has potential to growth but also to bust.

GONE:James Neal, Zemgus Girgensons, Cody Eakin, Nolan Stevens, Cody Franson, Calvin de Haan, Nick Jensen, Dion Phaneuf, Christian Folin, Ethan Prow, Jonathan Bernier, Christopher Gibson

INCOMING: Jonathan Drouin, Joakim Nygard, Karson Kuhlman, Denis Savard, Jack Johnson, Brandon Montoru, Dakota Mermis, Lassi Lehtinen, Hunter Miska

IMPACT OF CHANGES: Defense was hit hard once again. After building up a complete new defense last season, the Trappers had to do it all over again with the loss of De Haan, Jensen, Phaneuf and Folin. They arrivals of Savard, J. Johnson and Montour should take over the new defense corps together with Hamonic and Bortuzzo. Up front the team seems to have suffered in depth from the loss of three veterean players with only Drouin having come in as an improvement on right wing. The Trappers hope the Quebec-native can recover from a couple of mediocre and injury riddled seasons.

The departure of Bernier means the load of Jordan Binnington will increase. The rookie goaltender had a phenomenal season last year but it remains to be seen whether he can maintain his high end standard without the true push of a legitime back-up.

READY FOR FULL-TIME: With more bodies going out than in, Bill Peters will seek for help from within.

At left wing Oskar Lindblom will get to see fill time action whereas also a lot is expected from Nikita Gusev this season after having acclimatized to the UHL last year.

On the other wing, Filip Zadina and Dominik Simon will have the opportunity to secure a full time role on the team.

Travis Boyd, Antti Suomela and Henrik Borgstrom will all be given a look at the final center spot left open on the roster.

With the defensive corps pretty much set, only Dakota Mermis is looking in from the outside, trying to snatch away some minutes to impress Bill Peters.

In net, the backup role is fully openwith Jon Gillies having the most bragging rights based on years of service with the Trappers, however Mikhail Berdin or Hunter Miska can surprise when leaving a good performance in training camp.

Pundits expect another difficult season for the Trappers but Peters has shown to be not afraid of this daunting task to rebuild a machine. Time will tell whether season 39 will bring rain or sunshine in Tilburg.

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