By Jeff D'Andrea

Schmidli signs with Swiss pro team

Apr 1, 2015 | 6:11 PM

The Prince Albert Raiders thought that after the Leon Draisaitl deal, they would get a solid year and a half of production out of Swiss import Kris Schmidli. As of Wednesday afternoon, that won’t be the case.

On Wednesday in a phone interview with paNOW.com, Raiders general manager Bruno Campese confirmed Schmidli has signed a professional contract with the GCK Lions in the second-tier Swiss Hockey League. They are the farm team for the ZSC Lions, the defending Swiss Hockey League champions and are based in Schmidli’s hometown of Zürich, SUI.

It’s not like Schmidli ran out the door yelling and screaming, he actually asked Campese for advice first.

“He asked me what I thought, and I just told him that he’s not going to play in the National Hockey League, in his career, he’s going to be a European pro,” said Campese. “He’s getting offered a decent contract for his first year of pro and I just think [it’s] in his best interest to look at that option, which he has.

“We’re happy for him.”

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Although he battled injuries in his half-year with the Raiders, Schmidli was very effective when he was in the lineup. He scored seven goals and 17 points in as many games and clicked with fellow ex-Rocket Austin Glover.

Without Schmidli in their roster, the Raiders will have to replace Schmidli at the CHL Import Draft on June 30.

But since the Raiders figured they would have to replace former Raiders Leon Draisaitl and Tomas Andrlik in the Import draft from the start of the year, they’ll be prepared.

“From our standpoint, is it a little bit of a hit? Yeah, but at the end of the day, I think we’ve done a really good job at drafting Euros,” said Campese, highlighting Draisaitl and current Raider Simon Stransky as recent examples. “We were looking at potentially drafting a Euro all year long, so it’s not anything that’s new, we’ve been doing our homework as the year’s gone on.”

Before the last game of the year, Schmidli posted a farewell note of sorts on his Twitter account.

jdandrea@panow.com

On Twitter: @jeff_dandrea