The 45-year-old Mlejnek was promoted from assistant manager to manager at the end of October, when he replaced Vladimír Růžička. The Olympic champion from Nagano and the former national team coach were sacked due to poor results.
Under Mlejnk’s coaching, Litvínov has so far played 16 games in the extra league and has ten victories. After a series of four wins in a row, the North Bohemian team is in eleventh place with a distance of ten points from the last Kladno.
Litvínova hockey has one problem, she has no proteges in the NHL, there are few of them in club colors. Contribution of the Příklep programvideo: Sport.cz
As head coach, Mlejnek has already led Karlovy Vary to the extra league. Between 2018 and 2020, he was assistant to Miloš Říha Sr. in the Czech national team, and coached the under-20 team for the next two years.
Captain Matúš Sukeľ and top scorer Andrej Kudrna have also signed a new two-year contract with Litvínov. Both Slovakian forwards arrived in northern Bohemia last year from Sparta, and had previously also played for Slovan Bratislava in the KHL.
The 26-year-old Sukeľ scored seven goals and six assists in 35 games last year for Verva. This season, he has seven goals and nine assists in 30 games so far.
🌰 The first die is the new contract for coach Karel Mlejenko. He will lead Chemiky next season with an option for another 💛 pic.twitter.com/XBteI8iJuZ
— HC VERVA Litvínov (@hcvlitvinov) December 24, 2022
Kudrna currently leads the league extra scorer chart with 16 hits, to which he added three assists. Last year he played for Litvínov in 51 games with 11 goals and 12 assists.
