Two Slovenian hockey players to join forces in Torpedo

Slovenian head coach also composing the national team

It has already been made official that Žiga Jeglič is Torpedo’s newest member, and is expected to get company of a fellow Slovenian very soon. Foto: BoBo

The Russian ice hockey club Torpedo Nizhny Novgorod has published that their new force for the KHL league is the Slovenian player Žiga Jeglič. The captain of the Slovenian national team Jan Muršak is also about to sign a contract with them.

The key men of the Slovenian national team, nicknamed as the Lynx, are both going to change teams. Jeglič has played for a Slovak representative in the world's second strongest league, Slovan from Bratislava. This year the team failed to qualify for the playoffs, and the 29-year-old Slovenian concluded the season with 11 goals and 16 passes. Last year he collected 25 points, and 23 the year before. He had also played for Bled, Swedish Södertälje, Finnish Ässät and German Ingolstadt. In recent years he has been the organiser of the game in the Slovenian national team, where he is part of the forwards' trio with Rok Tičar and Robert Sabolič.

Jan Muršak, captain of the Lynx, will also don Torpedo's jersey, report reliable Russian source. The (also) 29-year-old Slovenian was member of CSKA, the renowned club from Moscow, which is doing a complete overhaul of the team. Muršak scored seven goals and 13 passes this year, and skated with the letter A on his jersey as one of the captain's assistants. CSKA qualified as the best team of the regular season but then lost in the conference semi-final against Lokomotiv. The Slovenian collected 36 points in 2016 and 43 the year before. He started the 2013/14 season as a member of Amur from Habarovsk but then transferred to CSKA and played 17 matches.

From the birthplace of Maribor, Muršak first moved to Češke Budejovice and later to North America, where he played in the NHL league. He was a member of Detroit Red Wings, for which he played 27 matches, scoring one goal and two passes. During NHL's lockout, he joined Olimpija in Ljubljana. His new club, Torpedo, took sixth place in KHL's West conference and was defeated in the quarterfinals, where it lost 1:4 to Dinamo from Moscow.
Both on the Slovenian national team

Both were part of the Slovenian national team at the Sochi Olympics, and also played in Minsk last year, where the Lynx won a ticket to the next Olympics for the second time in a row. The Slovenian team, including Jeglič and Muršak, will also play in the world championship of the elite division, which starts this Friday, with Slovenia facing Switzerland as its first opponent on Saturday.

T. J., MMC; translated by K. Z.