The Dragons are coming off a Cup Championship in S42 and remain a very strong team headed into S43 with the eye on winning back to back cups. It's not going to be easy, it never is, but they have a great chance with key players returning, young player taking on bigger roles and a key addition to the line up in free agency.

1. Veteran presence and leadership. One of the things that keeps the Dragons on top is the veteran players we have on the team, their determination to be the best in the sim and their experience with winning. It all keeps us productive on the ice and positive in the room. We have a lot of great members who work tirelessly to win championships and support each other. We also have a pretty decent GM and Co-GM who are the most successful tandem in SHL history.

2. Defense. Our defensive unit is very strong, everyone boasts a 96+ D rating and 5 of our 6 D have 99 D rating, this is always key but they also have sensible smart builds to support their defense. We have a nice mix of scorers, passers and hitters this year in Kaiser, Shirobokov, Creller, Makismov, Driftwood and Goody Jr. I expect them to all mesh well and once again become one of the best units in the league. We made a big addition of Fedor Shirobokov in the off-season who will help us remain consistently one of the hardest teams to play against and our goalie Dick Chocolate isn't half bad either.

3. Offense. Our offense is strong with big studs like Joe Kurczewski and Mike Izzy along with Mikko Linna, but we have a new addition to the group with the movement of Roman Augustus to the wing this season. The former offensive defender fills a big void as the top high scoring winger the dragons were looking for in the off-season by making the position switch. We expect this to be a key move for us this year and for Roman to excel. We also will see the further develop of playoff stars Hunter Jones and Shooter McGavin and we still have veteran 5-time champions Esa, Randleman and Mack playing effective hockey for us.

The pro-team is looking very strong and we had a great draft with the additions of forwards Nicky Pedersen Jr, Crush Cile and defenseman Helmuts Akmelauks who join future goalie superstar Kate Vilde on the farm. The present is great and the future is bright in Calgary. It's a good time to be a Dragon.