Czech forward Michael Frolik becomes first Chicago Blackhawks player to sign in Europe
After many National Hockey League (NHL) players who have signed with European teams since the news of lockout of NHL, now, the first Chicago Blackhawks’ player has signed for a European team. And that happens to be Czech forward Michael Frolik who has signed
for a Czech side.
None of the Chicago Blackhawks had signed for any European team before him but this move was on the cards as the Czech player definitely would have wanted to sign for any side in his native country after the lock out of all important and prestigious NHL.
The 24-year-old centre, who previously played for Florida Panthers and started his career in the Czech league, is back to the place where he started his career and would join HC Chomutov, which is not far away from his hometown Kladno, which is also his
birthplace.
Frolik would be feeling much more comfortable in his native country and would be looking to do much better than he did for Chicago Blackhawks last year, as he plays his first game. He would definitely be looking to forget the previous season and having a
much better one in Europe, like he said before.
The first round selectee of 2006 NHL Draft had earlier said in the summer that he would be looking to focus on the next season and doing better as he stated,
‘‘We had a good group, so the end was a little bit better [for me]. But for sure the [Hawks] season, you want to forget it and try to focus on the next one and maybe change some things.’’
The 6-foot-1, 185 pounder made his NHL debut in 2008-2009 season for Florida Panthers and showed some good performances for two and a half seasons, before getting traded to Blackhawks. But his last season was a terrible one as he scored just 5 goals, 10
assists for total of 15 points in 63 games. About it Frolik had said,
‘‘I had a good start but couldn’t score, and then everything turned around. I was getting nervous because I wasn’t scoring. I was too tight. It wasn’t easy, but it was last season. I’ll try to learn from it, forget about it and make sure it’s different next
year.’’
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