The Quad City Mallards have acquired forward Garret Klotz from the Norfolk Admirals in exchange for defenseman Andrew Panzarella and have signed forwards Ivan Hodulov and Stathis Soumelidis and defenseman Kristaps Bazevics to tryout agreements, the Mallards announced today.

The newly acquired quartet brings to 27 the number of players on the Mallards’ roster for the team’s 2017 training camp, which opened today. The current training camp roster can be found below.

Klotz, 28, returns to North America with the Mallards for his tenth season in professional hockey. The 6-foot-6, 250-pound Regina, Saskatchewan native played in the United Kingdom last season for Coventry Blaze of the Elite Ice Hockey League. Klotz scored five goals and added two assists while piling up 80 penalty minutes in 52 regular season games with Coventry.

Klotz, who was selected by the Philadelphia Flyers in the third round of the 2007 National Hockey League Entry Draft with the sixty-sixth overall pick, has played for ten teams in four leagues on two continents over the course of his career. He has totaled 30 goals, 43 assists, 73 points and 963 penalty minutes in 429 career games.

Klotz played in the American Hockey League with first the Philadelphia Phantoms and then the Adirondack Phantoms for most of his first four seasons. He has played more hockey- 157 games- in the AHL than he has in any other league. Klotz has recorded 11 AHL points (four goals and seven assists) and accumulated 193 minutes in AHL penalties.

The Mallards will be Klotz’s sixth ECHL club. He has previously skated in the ECHL for the Greenville Road Warriors, Fort Wayne Komets, Indy Fuel, Wichita Thunder and Elmira Jackals.

Klotz last played in the United States two seasons ago when he produced one goal and four assists and spent 119 minutes in the penalty box over 40 games with Elmira. He has scored six goals and collected 11 assists for 17 points and run up 304 penalty minutes in 116 career ECHL games.

Klotz was a member of the Allen Americans club that won the final Central Hockey League Ray Miron President’s Cup championship in 2014. That season also saw Klotz lead the CHL in penalty minutes (257) while registering 14 points (six goals and eight assists) in 55 games. Allen was Klotz’s second CHL stop. He first played in the league for the Bloomington PrairieThunder, with whom he set career highs in goals (9), assists (15) and points (24) while playing 49 games in 2010-11.   

Klotz played three seasons in the Western Hockey League before turning professional. He began his major junior career with the Red Deer Rebels before playing his final two WHL seasons with the Saskatoon Blades. Klotz notched five goals, five assists, ten points and 229 penalty minutes in 150 career junior games.

Panzarella, 27, provided seven goals, 16 assists and 23 points in 63 games with the Mallards last season. The University of North Dakota product joined the Mallards after playing for the Idaho Steelheads as a rookie in 2015-16.

Hodulov, 23, scored three goals and grabbed eight assists for 11 points in 18 games as a rookie last season with the St. Clair Shores Fighting Saints of the Federal Hockey League. The 5-foot-10, 176-pound Belgian-born Bulgarian citizen returns to the Quad Cities to participate in the Mallards’ training camp for the second year in a row.

Hodulov first played in North America with the Kingsville Kings of Ontario’s Greater Metro Junior A Hockey League in 2015-16. He scored 23 goals and assisted on 36 more for 59 points in 37 games and helped the Kings to the GMHL’s Russell Cup finals.

Before making his transatlantic transition, Hodulov played- primarily in the junior ranks- for clubs in Lithuania (HC Zalgiris), Russia (HC Dinamo Saint Petersburg), Bulgaria (CSKA Sofia) and Slovakia (SHK 37 Piestany).

Hodulov last spring represented Bulgaria at the International Ice Hockey Federation World Championship (fourth tier) for the third time after previously doing so in 2014 (fourth tier) and 2015 (third tier). He was also a member of the Bulgarian teams that competed in the fourth tier of the IIHF World Junior Championship in 2010, 2011 and 2013.

Soumelidis, 23, scored ten goals and picked up ten assists for 20 points in 45 games last season while helping the Macon Mayhem to the Southern Professional Hockey League’s President’s Cup title.

Soumelidis broke into professional hockey in 2015-16. The 6-foot-2, 205-pound product of Brno, Czech Republic split his rookie season between the Berlin River Drivers of the Federal Hockey League and the SPHL’s Mississippi River Kings.

Soumelidis first competed in North America when he joined the Everett Silvertips of the WHL in 2012-13. Soumelidis returned to his homeland the following season to play for HC Sparta Praha’s under-20 team. He remained with Sparta’s under-20’s for the start of the 2014-15 season before once more crossing the Atlantic and spending the bulk of that campaign with the Rio Grande Valley Killer Bees of the North American Hockey League.

Bazevics, a 23-year old Latvian, played for both Slovenian and French clubs last season. The 6-foot-2, 198-pound Riga native scored two goals and added eight assists for ten points in 25 games with Olimpija Ljubljana, a Slovenian team that competes in the predominantly Austrian Erste Bank Eishockey Liga, before moving on to France with Gap, with whom he won the Saxoprint Ligue Magnus championship after scoring twice and gathering five assists in 16 regular season games.
 
Last season was the second in a row during which Bazevics split time between two different countries. He was in Finland with Hermes for most of the 2015-16 campaign but did play a pair of games in his homeland with Zemgale. Bazevics first played in Finland in 2014-15, when he suited up for Assat’s under-20 team.

Bazevics makes his return to the United States with the Mallards after playing three seasons of junior hockey in North America between 2011 and 2014. He appeared in a pair of games in the WHL for the Prince Albert Raiders during the 2011-12 season but saw NAHL action during most of his first excursion on this side of the Atlantic, playing for the Alaska Avalanche, Johnstown Tomahawks and Wichita Falls Wildcats.

While the Mallards have welcomed four fresh faces they started camp this morning without a further foursome of players. Forward Chris Francis was sidelined by an upper body injury while forward Tristan King, who was acquired in a trade last month with the Orlando Solar Bears, is expected to join the team later this week. In addition, the roster for the opening of camp did not include a pair of Mallards- forwards Josh MacDonald and Sam Warning- taking part in Chicago Wolves training camp. The Mallards are in their first season as the ECHL affiliate of both the American Hockey League’s Wolves and the National Hockey League’s Vegas Golden Knights.

The Mallards return to the River’s Edge in Davenport tomorrow for day two of camp. Tomorrow morning’s practice time has been changed. The Mallards will now hit the ice from 8:30 to 10:45 a.m. tomorrow.

The Mallards will open their twenty-first season- and their fourth in the ECHL- on Friday, October 13 against the Toledo Walleye at the TaxSlayer Center. Mallards 2017-18 season tickets are now available. Season ticket holders enjoy significant savings off the walk-up ticket price and receive a host of exclusive benefits. For more season ticket information, fans can contact the Mallards at 309-277-1364 or info@myqcmallards.net. Single game tickets are also now on sale at the TaxSlayer Center box office, Ticketmaster toll free charge-by-phone (1-800-745-3000) and ticketmaster.com.


Quad City Mallards Training Camp-Opening Roster (27)
Forwards (13)
Alex Globke
Connor Gorman
Trever Hertz
Ivan Hodulov
Garrett Klotz
Justin Kovacs
Brayden Low
Ryan McGrath
Kyle Novak
Matt Pohlkamp
Michael Pontarelli
Stathis Soumelidis
Jamie Tardif*

Defensemen (11)
Greg Amlong
Kristaps Bazevics
Kyle Bigos
Mark Esshaki
Kyle Follmer
Kevin Kirisits
Alexander Kuqali
Chris Leibinger
Mike Leone
Kevin Patterson
Ales Sova

Goaltenders (3)
Kris Joyce
C.J. Motte
Kent Patterson

*- Player/assistant coach

Chicago Wolves Training Camp (2)
Forwards (2)
Josh MacDonald
Sam Warning