The Transylvanian club is hoping to end a four season playoff drought, the last time they played in the postseason they lost in the championship finals to Dunaújváros. With Leo Gudas coming back from last season there are signs of stability for the first time in years.
Transylvania is a hockey rich region of Romania with Csíkszereda as the flagship. In recent years the club has not had the success that it traditionally has had in the past. However the proud club's plans to turn things around and surprise teams in the league. The club will be competing in three competitions along with the Erste Liga Csíkszereda will be contending for gold in the Romanian league and the Romanian cup.
For the second straight season Csíkszereda will be going with home grown talent between the pipes as Gellért Ruczuj and Ottó Onodi will be the goaltending duo. Both netminders will be getting plenty of ice time during the three competitions.
On defence there is plenty of experience among the imports and the local players. Stanislav Hudec was signed from Dunaújváros with Tomas Brnak spending the past five seasons in the Slovak extraliga. Szabolcs Papp is the hands down leader of this group with his multiple league titles. Look for Imre János, Szilárd Orbán and Zoltán Molnár to round out the top six defencemen.
The forwards bost talent as there are two former NHL draft picks among the four import forwards, games played in the KHL, AHL, Czech and Slovak extraligas. Peter Fabus was drafted by the Arizona Coyotes and joins Csíkszereda after playing the past four season in Kazakhstan. Andrei Taratukhin was a Calgary Flames draft pick and played last season in the KHL. Ondrej Rusnak should be familiar to Csíkszereda fans as they rooted against him last season when he was playing for Galati. Radim Valchar is back for another season after he had 27 points in 24 games. Csanád Fodor, Tamás Farkas, Zsombor Antal and Hugó Gecse could step up and round out the top two scoring lines. The veteran Ervin Moldován will be turning 40 this season, even though he might have slowed down, he still has great vision on the ice and is a great person for the younger players such as Szilárd Rokaly and Norbert Antal can learn from. Tamás Biró is a player that can score but can also play on an energy line if needed.
Leo Gudas is back, but this time for a full season, we will have his own fingerprint on this roster and will be able to mold it into his style of play.
Szabolcs Papp: After the past three seasons did not go as we would have liked, we can only improve and go up. The looks to be put together better than in the past and the imports were carefully selected. The coaching staff is back from last season and we can continue on the path that was started last season. The coach knows the players and he picked the new ones that we signed. We have a rather young team, which means that we are lacking experience, however this can be counterbalanced with the great play of the import players and that our lines work well together.
Key Additions: Ondrej Rusnak (Galati), Stanislav Hudec (Dunaújváros), Tomas Brnak (Martin, Extraliga), Csanád Fodor (Brasov), Peter Fabus (Pavlodar, Kazakhstan), Andrei Taratukhin (Novokuznetsk, KHL),
Key Departures: Zsombor Molnár (Brasov), Nathan Campbell (Trollhatten, SWE4), Michal Korenko, Dustin Wood, Róbert Péter, Ilya Solaryov (unknown)
