With eleven players holding expiring contracts, HC Fribourg-Gottéron's team manager and head coach Christian Dubé has a lot on his plate, especially after the hiring of Bertschy. "A good portion of my budget went into that signing. We will not be announcing any other big names. We'll have to make choices and cuts elsewhere" reveals Dubé to La Liberté.
The intention of Dubé is to bring in young players to play alongside the veteran core of the team. This means that in the defense, Benoît Jecker (27) might be preferred over Philippe Furrer (36) and Jérémie Kamerzin (33). A move on EHC Biel's Yannick Rathgeb, although much desired, is financially impossible at the moment.
For the offense, Dubé would like to keep Samuel Walser around, but the 29-year-old has been in talks with other clubs as well. As for Mauro Jörg, he would like to stay in Fribourg, but his future has not been discussed yet. The same applies to Jordann Bougro, who has six months to convince the club to keep him.
Finally, the package of import players might look a bit different next season as they all have expiring contracts. In addition to Ryan Gunderson, who will probably stay, Dubé seems to incline towards signing a second "more defensive" foreigner in defense, two centers, and one winger. This means that in the offense, winger Daniel Brodin will probably have to leave, while David Desharnais might end up covering one of the two center slots. In any case, whoever will stay in Fribourg will have to accept a salary decrease.
