Looking at the game sheet for the China Dragon season opener last night, Mikhail Nemirovsky was the only import dressed for the Chinese squad in the 2-8 loss to Oji. It’ll be a long long season for them unless they sign a few more imports. (They’ve declared that the team will not use up all 7 import slots in order to give Chinese players more playing experience. And Asian players don’t count as imports within the league, Japanese rookie goalie Inoue was in nets for the Dragon.)
Elsewhere, over the weekend, the Japanese and Korean teams opened their seasons. The Korean derby games were both wild shootouts (6-8, 5-4) as the teams split the games. The newly bolstered Nikko Ice Bucks took one of the games from the Oji Eagles despite being badly outshot (2-3, 2-1), and the newcomers Tohoku Free Blades managed to earn their first Asia League point by taking game 2 of their opening series against the defending champs Nippon Paper Cranes to a shootout after the teams were unable to settle the score following regulation and overtime (2-4, 5-4 so). You can find all the scores and game sheets here:
