1. Artemi Berezin was handed some exclusive keys to a nice VIP sweet at Edmonton’s home games during the finals, curtesy of GM Keygan, who Berezin goes all the way back to Montreal with in the SMJHL. He was also given some marching orders from the Minnesota staff to do some poking around incase he saw anything that they should also be doing with their team, but anyway, he did enjoy the free food and vodka, to hi Russia taste, and oh yeah, the hockey. Edmonton has had a rough go with the finals coming up against a tough opponent in Hamilton, but the house has been rocking whenever he is there to enjoy it. Edmonton was also thinking about offering him a nice jersey and some hats or whatever, but then realized that could be used as tampering material and decided that wouldn’t be a good idea, and did train Berezin how to avoid camera detection with a tutorial video from Carrie Underwood.

2. First off, if  you don’t think that alternate realities exist, get gone.
Anyway, as one sided as these finals have been so far, with Hamilton just throttling Edmonton I believe that Edmonton has been kissing their lucky egg for just too long. The team that should have just ran away with this season is obvious, the Specters.
Complain all you want about the Hamilton rig, it didn’t look like that paid off during the regular season that saw New Orleans run away with 75 total points to take home some fine trophy, have almost 10 point spread between them and Hamilton, and also a 61 goal differential.
I guess you could call it the Tampa curse from last season, but in my alternate reality, the New Orleans Specters just destroyed the SHL, regular season and playoffs, and you can throw whoever you want to take them on, but they still win in spectacular fashion.

4. From time to time you can find major team injuries happen that would mean that some players are shuffled around, thankfully, Berezin has a decent enough build that he can be used in all positions in the forward core, and he has throughout his career. Now you might think that defense would be a tougher positon for him to switch to, but you’d be wrong. First of all, Berezin’s agent, former SHL champion, Roman Morenov, was one of the best shutdown defensemen of his day way back when, so any help from him would be handy, and also, Berezin is built to be a two way forward and knows the value of playing defense first, and then you can also add in his offensive touch, and he becomes even more deadly from the back end. But don’t give the new Minnesota management anything to think about because he is losing his step in his old age.

5. Artemi Berezin is coming off of a rather step back year for himself points wise. He put up some of his lowest point totals this past season on a not so good, but bright Minnesota team. But, with new management stepping in and fresh off signing a new 3 year deal, Berezin seems to be re-energized. He will need that re-energization to kick start his off season since he will be entering his 14th season in the SHL and it seems that Minnesota will be moving some players and he will once again be leading the charge toward the future. Berezin is excited to spend some of his summer with friends and family back in Russia, but has talked about taking a bigger role with the rebuilding Chiefs and really helping the young players find their game before the season begins. He will hope to accomplish this by taking part in team building with them and running mini bootcamps from his years of experience, and lets not forget championship.


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