Slovan is not idle during the national team break. He drew the former Nitra player | Sports.sk

After more than a year, Canadian hockey defenseman Luke Green is returning to Slovakia’s top competition. He agreed on a contract until the end of the ongoing season with HC Slovan Bratislava. In the 2022/23 season and also at the beginning of last year, he worked in HK Nitra, then last October he moved to the Düsseldorfer EG team in the German DEL. However, he played only five duels there.

Twenty-six-year-old Green previously worked in the Canadian youth league QMJHL, first with the Saint John Sea Dogs and later with the Sherbrooke Phoenix. In the summer of 2016, he was selected by the Winnipeg Jets in the 3rd round of the NHL entry draft from the 79th overall. After the end of his junior career, he moved to Manitoba, where he played for the AHL team Manitoba Moose for two seasons. However, he did not succeed higher in the Jets organization, so he chose to move to Europe during the covid pandemic.

He played for Vaasan Sport in Finland and later for Västerviks IK, a team in Sweden’s second highest league. During the 2022/23 season, he strengthened Nitra outside the league, which he helped with 20 Canadian points in 33 games.

By recruiting Green, Slovan responds to the injury of its most productive player until then, Sen Acolatse, from the game in Košice. Green is a similar typological player. “Of course, when Luke Green came, we are responding without Sen Acolatse. Luke is an excellent captain who plays from the right side and can greatly support the offense with a very good first pass.

After Sen’s injury, we have been missing this feature in our game in the last few games and we had to work as fast as possible,” said Lukáš Havlíček, general manager of HC Slovan, for the club’s website.

Green trained alone at home in Halifax earlier this season. He will arrive in Bratislava at the beginning of the weekend and will immediately take part in the training process so that the coaches can consider using him as early as the next home game on Wednesday, November 13 against HK Nitra. He will wear the number 51 on his jersey.