After the quiet 2-week ‘national’ break for the European Leagues, they returned to action yesterday and the landscape was quite different thanks to numerous signings and transfers.

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1. The Pavel Brendl European Tour continues and his next stop is with the Finnish second-tier (Mestis League) team Joensuu Jokipojat. Let’s see if he can last longer than 2 weeks with his 4th (5th if you count Krefeld) club of the season.

2. Miroslav Zalesak, in a quiet and surprising move, decided to leave HK36 Skalica of the Slovak League and wound up with Chemopetrol Litvinov of the Czech League. This should allow Zalesak a higher level of play and it won’t hurt that he’s on a line with Robert Reichel. Zalesak had a bombastic debut with 2 goals in a 4-1 win.

3. Meanwhile, the Slovak League is looking quite barren thanks to the departures of Palffy (returned to Slavia), Zalesak, Strbak (to Russia) and Hossa (to Sweden).

4. Debutantes – Jaro Modry made his expected debut with Liberec, Ivan Majesky made his debut for Sparta Praha, and Frantisek Kaberle joined his brother in Kladno for their first game together.

5. The Yankee – There were 0 Americans and 0 Canadians (Because I’m not counting Petr Nedved as a Canadian) in the Czech Extraliga before the break. For cultural, monetary, and other reasons, there has rarely been a non-Slavic ‘Cizenec’ in the Czech League. That all changed with American Connor Dunlop joined Litvinov in his debut yesterday. Looking at Dunlop’s past stats, he was a solid college player who was never drafted in the NHL, and then played just 10 unproductive games in the ECHL last year. I’ll have to read up on this if I can find anything. At the very least, Dunlop had an assist on one of Miro Zalesak's goals.

6. Fight Card – Rostislav Klesla vs. ex-Sharks farmhand Robert Jindrich. This has got to be a record fighting year for the Czech Extraliga.

Now, for the stats…

CZECHIA:


SLOVAKIA:

Since the detailed boxscores aren’t on the main site, here are the basis:

Pavol Demitra and Marian Gaborik were held pointless in a surprising 4-1 loss to Liptovsky Mikulas.

Radoslav Suchy did not play in a 2-2 tie between Poprad and Skalica. As mentioned before, Palffy and Zalesak are now both in Czechia.

Visnovsky, Nagy, and Bicek were held pointless in a 1-0 Slovan Bratislava beating of Kosice.

In a 4-2 Zloven victory over Zilina, Vladimir Orszagh had 2 goals (including the game winner), while Zednik and Handzus each had 2 assists (on both Orszagh goals, of course).