Miroslav Lazo
14 years ago
Miroslav Lazo is a player who is almost completely unknown in North America. An agitator who has spent most of his career with HC Slovan Bratislava in Slovakia, Lazo will be attending the Oilers main training camp this fall. I had never even heard of him until Lowetide mentioned him on Sunday, and a commenter on HFBoards offered this summary:
Regarding Lažo, he´s a skilled forward and he had his best season yet last year with Slovan, he´s been training with Ľubo Višňovský during the summer, so that might be a part of the reason he was invited to the camp. According to Lažo, the Oilers talked to Ľubo about him, so…Also there supposedly were two other NHL clubs interested in him, but the Oilers were the most serious. On the other hand he´s a also a git on the ice who loves to provoke thus the high number of penalty minutes and he has a bad habit to ens up in the penalty box at real bad times for his team. Although some might consider this part of him good in some situations, probably the only guy in the whole league who´d jump even into Pálffy.
According to Lazo, three different NHL clubs had an interest in bringing him into training camp, but after learning of the Oilers interest directly from Lubomir Visnovsky (who he trained with this summer) he decided to come to Edmonton.
Lazo’s numbers in Slovakia the past few seasons have been quite good:
- 2008-09: 54GP – 24G – 30A – 54PTS, +21, 198 PIM
- 2007-08: 50GP – 25G – 22A – 47PTS, +40, 210 PIM
- 2006-07: 51GP – 18G – 20A – 38PTS, +22, 196 PIM
Lazo is also reportedly a strong skater; he won the fastest skater award at the 2006 Czech League vs. Slovak League all-star game. Despite the high penalty totals, he isn’t a big player; listed at just 5’10” and 190lbs.
He’s a long-shot to make the roster, but Lazo’s easily one of the more interesting players coming to training camp this fall.
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