Czech Extraleague News: Marek Milestone

New York Rangers draftee Jan Marek reached a milestone in his Extraleague career recently, lighting the lamp for the 100th time.

A native of Jindrichuv Hradec, Marek broke into the Extraleague with HC Ocelari Trinec in 1999-2000. After spending four seasons in the steel city in the northeast of the Czech Republic, the shifty forward headed west to the country's capital to join Sparta Praha.

The 26-year old waterbug blossomed into one of the most prolific scorers of the Extraleague. Blessed with above-average speed and acceleration, his biggest assets, Marek is able to outskate opposing defensemen and also possesses the smooth finishing skills to be a dangerous threat when in scoring range.

A tricky scorer in-close, Marek boasts a fast release from both sides of his stick as well as strong shooting abilities which can surprise goaltenders. However, he isn't a player who scores many garbage goals and could also upgrade on the power of his slapshot.

Marek, who currently sits second in the Czech Extraleague scoring race behind Sparta Praha teammate Petr Ton, was considered as an outside candidate to be named to the Czech national team for the 2006 Winter Olympics, but ended up as a cut.

Vladimir Ruzicka Jr. Promoted

Young forward Vladimir Ruzicka Jr. cracked the Slavia Praha senior lineup recently in replace of Vladimir Sobotka, who suffered a back injury and subsequently left for the 2006 WJC in Canada.

Eligible for the 2007 NHL Draft, Ruzicka Jr. took a spot on the fourth line of Slavia, whose coach happens to be his father, Vladimir Ruzicka Sr., the former NHL forward and captain of the gold-medal Czech team from the 1998 Nagano Olympics.

In his role as general manager and head coach of Slavia Praha, Ruzicka Sr. naturally was the main factor in his son's promotion to the senior team. He has been watching over his son since he first laced on skates as a little kid in Edmonton and has actively coached Ruzicka Jr. since he was eight years old.

The younger Ruzicka ranks as one of the better players on the junior squad, contributing at a point-per-game pace (29-13-17-30) despite being an underager, though would clearly benefit from further seasoning at the elite junior level.

His vision and smooth puckhandling skills are sufficient for a callup, however his skinny frame and lackluster play in traffic, combined with inconsistency and subpar defensive play, will limit his impact at the senior level.

Despite scoring in his first senior Extraleague goal on December 22nd against Liberec, it is likely that Ruzicka Jr. will eventually be returned to the junior squad given Slavia Praha's impressive depth at the forward position.

Freiberg Loaned To Plzen

Sizable '06 eligible forward Petr Freiberg returned to his native country for a month when current his club, IFK Helsinki of Finland, loaned him to HC Lasselsberger Plzen of the Czech Extraleague.

IFK Helsinki, coached by Canadian Doug Shedden, filled their import spots with Canadian goaltender Tom Askey, forwards Peter White and Mark Murphy, and big Czech defender Robert Schnabel, thus leaving Freiberg as the odd man out.

Rather than returning him to the junior team, IFK management wanted to provide their young talent with a chance to play at the elite senior level in another European country. A native of Chomutov in the Czech Republic, Freiberg signed on with Plzen until January 31st.

The solution helped both IFK and Plzen since the latter was going to lose fellow 2006 eligible prospect Martin Latal, who returned to his parent team Kladno December 31st, and Chicago Blackhawks' prospect Jakub Sindel due to his selection to the Under-20 WJC team.

Freiberg serves Plzen as a dependable two-way workhorse and isn't expected to contribute big numbers while seeing just limited duty. He has registered a goal and an assist in eight games for Plzen.