Chay Genoway (FHC)
Chay Genoway is my wildcard player, a player who at 31 years of age has only just moved to Sweden for the first time and is yet to establish himself in the SHL. But in many ways he has a typical profile of a player who will do well in Sweden.
After five promising years at University of South Dakota in 2011/2 he started a three year spell in the AHL even getting one tryout game for Minnesota Wild. But the point scoring back was unable to maintain the quality of his first year with the Houston Aeros with 0.50 PPG and 29 assists in 72 games. In the cut throat world of the AHL that drop in form and his age, then 26, meant he was out of contract at the end of the 2013/4 season.
But in the era of Erik Karlsson-like mobile backs are in demand it meant Genoway was still able to make a living, but now in the KHL. He played there from 2014/5 with a different team each year, but continuing to smash in shots and produce assists averaging out at 0.45 PPG.
When the NHL refused to send players to the Olympics in April 2017 Team Canada went for a search through the European leagues looking for players. Genoway caught their eye and got to play a couple of international tournaments before being selected for Canada's Olympic team in PyeongChang. Apart from picking up a bronze medal, he got an assist from the first goal in the match against South Korea. The goal scorer was Christian Thomas, who is also starting his first ever season in Sweden, but now as one of Genoway's opponents at Rögle BK.
@ABritOnThinIce1
