The new season of the NHL will start in Prague, in North America it will not start until Tuesday
Update: 6/10/2022 12:34 p.m
Issued by: 6/10/2022, 12:34 p.m
Prague – Czech fans will watch the start of the 106th season (105th played) of the NHL on Friday and Saturday in Prague’s O2 arena. It will be opened by the San Jose hockey players with forward Tomáš Hertl and defender Radim Šimek against Nashville, the best league in the world will play its competitive matches in the Czech capital for the fourth time. In North America, preparatory games are played until Saturday, and the first sharp duels there will be the New York Rangers against Tampa Bay and Los Angeles against Vegas from Tuesday to Wednesday.
San Jose moved to Prague on Wednesday from Berlin, where a day earlier they played a friendly against Eisbären and won 3:1 thanks to Hertl’s goal. Nashville visited the Czech capital already on Tuesday after arriving from Bern, where on Monday they beat the local SC 4:3. The Predators do not have Czech players in their squad, and Hertl believes that the fans in the O2 arena will side with the Sharks – unlike the general game in Berlin.
“It will be difficult to compare the atmosphere in Prague with Berlin, because the Prague team will not play there like the Berlin one. But I hope they will support us, because we have Czechs in the team and I will be playing in my hall. I hope we will show them a good show that we will play good hockey and we will win,” Hertl said at the press conference after the game in Berlin.
One of the leaders of San Jose Hertl, who with an annual income of 8.25 million dollars is the team’s third highest paid player behind defender Erik Karlsson and forward Tim Meier, played in the O2 arena in the years 2011 to 2013 in the jersey of the parent company Slavia. He also played there in 2015 at the World Cup.
“Overall, I see this event as a fantastic experience. Our guys have already seen me play in the NHL, but my brother will see me play for the Sharks for the first time, just like my friends. That’s why I’m happy that we’ll be playing in Prague. Also for Hertlík, who is right from there and he grew up hockey-wise in Slavia, in the O2 arena,” said Šimek in a blog for NHL.com/cs, who was not available to journalists for interviews in Berlin. A pupil of Mladá Boleslav to San Jose, he left extra-league Liberec in 2017.
Hertl and Šimek have the opportunity to follow the nine Czech hockey players who have played an NHL game on Czech soil. During the premiere on October 4 and 5, 2008, defenseman Michal Rozsíval and forward Petr Průcha met in identical wins of the New York Rangers over Tampa Bay 2:1. On the side of the losers were attackers Václav Prospal and Radim Vrbata.
Two years later, on October 9, Vrbata shined again in an appearance at the O2 Arena in a Phoenix jersey, helping with two goals and an assist in a 5-3 win over Boston. His only one was Průcha and also another striker Martin Hanzal. The Bruins team featured center David Krejčí, who, after an assist in the opening losing duel, helped with two passes a day later in the fightback to win 3:0.
The last time the duel of the best league in the world was played in the O2 arena was on October 4, 2019, and forward Jakub Voráček celebrated with Philadelphia a 4:3 win over Chicago, for which forwards David Kämpf and Dominik Kubalík started. In 2020, Boston was supposed to return in a duel with Nashville, but due to the coronavirus pandemic and the postponement of the season, the NHL returned to Europe only this year. On the Old Continent, in this yet another duel between defending Stanley Cup champion Colorado and Columbus, which will be presented on November 4 and 5 in Tampere.
The topic of San Jose’s appearance with Nashville in Prague was also the participation of Russian hockey players, who tried to prevent former goalkeeper Dominik Hašek from playing because of the war in Ukraine. The Olympic champion from Nagano and two-time Stanley Cup winner turned to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which sent a letter to the NHL management asking players not to travel to the Czech Republic. In the end, this did not hinder their application with valid visas. In the Sharks team is striker Yevgenij Svečnikov and in the Predators squad is forward Jakov Trenin.
The regular season of the NHL, in which 1,312 games will be played, will end on Thursday, April 13. It will also offer two duels in the open air. The traditional Winter Classic takes place on Jan. 2 at Fenway Park, with Boston hosting Pittsburgh. A Stadium Series matchup between Carolina and Washington is scheduled for February 18 at Carter-Finley Stadium on the campus of North Carolina State University in Raleigh. The All-Star Game is scheduled for Feb. 4 in Sunrise, Florida, and will be preceded by skills competitions a day earlier.