Ice hockey: Thunder line-up very different

The Dunedin Thunder will be almost unrecognisable when it takes to the ice next season.

Almost the entire team that finished fourth in the national league last year is gone, leaving coach Janos Kaszala with plenty of work to do in the next couple of months.

He will name his squad for next season in mid-April, but will not have many of last year's top players to choose from.

Notable losses include former captain Paris Heyd and forwards Bradley Apps, Luke Pickering and Matthew Enright.

Heyd, arguably the best skater in the league in recent years, is living and working in London, while Pickering is in Auckland and also looking to move overseas.

Enright and his partner have just had a baby, while Apps has picked up a semiprofessional contract in Norway.

But it is not all bad news.

Connor Harrison, who missed all but a few minutes of last season with a shoulder injury, and fellow forward Jacob Hurring are back.

They will be joined by forwards Lachlan Frear, Thomas Carson-Pratt and Monty Brown, who helped the Stampede win the league last year.

National under-19 inline hockey players Jaan Turia, a King's High School pupil, and Jaime Garcia-Meeuws are also on Kaszala's radar.

Former Canterbury Red Devils goalie Daniel Lee, who boasted the best save percentage (91.67%) in the league last year, is moving to Dunedin and will play for the Thunder.

Kaszala said signing Lee was "big'' because it not only meant he had a quality goalie, but he would not need to start an import goalie who could play in only 60% of the games.

The Thunder relied on Czech Republic import Jakub Pyrochta in goal last year, but struggled when he was pulled due to the limit on imports.

Kaszala is busy eyeing up imports to potentially join the squad before the season starts in June, and plans to find a good mixture between youth and experience.

"We want good experienced imports with some young New Zealanders,'' he said.

"I think that mixture can be quite deadly, but we have to really moult and mix them together.''

The Thunder has plenty of chances to do that when it plays six preseason games in May.

Dates have not been finalised, but it will host the Stampede at the Dunedin Ice Stadium in two games in early May, before playing two matches in Queenstown the same month.

It will also host two preseason games against the Red Devils in Dunedin at the end of the month, the same opponent it will open the season against in Christchurch on June 4-5.

The Thunder's tough start to the season will continue the following weekend, when it plays a double header against the defending champion in Queenstown on June 10-11.

Its first home games will be against the Botany Swarm on June 18-19.

Kaszala said the New Zealand-based players will start training for next season early next month.

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