This topic was requested by our patron Mikołaj Bizacki, who was in our views choice tier on Patreon. They wanted a piece on GKS Tychy!

You could have split teams into three tiers for the 2024 THL season. The top tier was your contenders, with Katowice, Jastrzebie, Oswiecim, and Tychy. Everyone in that first tier of teams had at least 72 points. The middle tier was Cracovia, Podhale, Torun, and Sosnowiec, who all finished close together with 46 to 52 points. Unfortunately, the final tier is Sanok by itself, with 16 points. It was fitting that most team stats also lined up exactly with the tier system. For example, when it comes to goals against, the entire first tier finished with only around 90-115 goals allowed, while everyone in tier two finished with 125 to 150. 

Tier 1: Contenders	GKS Katowice, GKS Tychy, JKH GKS Jastrzebie, & Unia Oswiecim
Tier 2: Middle of the Pack	Cracovia Krakow, KH Torun, Podhale Nowy Targ, & Zaglebie Sosnowiec
Tier 3: Bottom of the league	STS Sanok

There is only one instance where a team stat didn’t match the tier system, which is GKS Tychy when it comes to goals for. GKS Tychy scored 124 goals this past year, 12 behind Podhale and 26 behind the next-lowest team that slotted into our first tier of clubs. In their second playoffs series versus the eventual champions, Unia Oswiecim, Tychy only scored five goals in five games, getting shutout twice.

The team brought in a lot of new imports last offseason, who failed to live up to the hype. Illia Korenchuk, who had over a point per game regular season with Torun in 2024, finished with just 21 points in 53 games. Pavel Padakin saw his production go down slightly after posting big numbers with Oswiecim. Roman Rác had recorded at least 45 points in his first three THL seasons, but failed to hit 20 points this year. It wasn’t all on imports. National team forward Radosław Galant went from averaging around 20 points a year to only 10 this past campaign. After leading the league in goals with Sanok during the 2022 season, Jakub Bukowski never found his place in Tychy and only scored five times in 2024. 

The positive sides were slim. Alan Lyszczarczyk did his best, finishing with 13 more points than any another skater on the team. The national team star was doing his all and raced with Patryk Wronka for the regular season scoring title until he suffered an injury late into the year. Other standouts included Filip Komorski, who finished with 20 goals, leading the team. Bartłomiej Jeziorski posted his best career point-per-game average. At the transfer deadline, a late bright spot was grabbing Mark Viitanen from Sanok at the last minute. The Estonia national team forward made a quick impact with five goals and seven assists in only 19 games. 

While Tychy did win the bronze medal, it would be another year with a significant free agency forward refresh. Tychy only allowed 92 goals against in 2024, so they did not want to shake up the defense too much. A few imports have also been added and subtracted from the backend, including one that will be very valuable to helping lift the production. The goaltending duo of Tomas Fucik and Kamil Lewartowski will return in net. 

Projected Forward Line-up 

LW	C	RW
Alan Lyszczarczyk	Filip Komorski	Bartlomiej Jeziorski
Dominik Pas	Joona Monto	Rasmus Heljanko
Mateusz Gościński	Viktor Turkin	Mark Viitanen
Danila Larionovs	Matias Lehtonen	Mateusz Ubowski
Jan Krzyżek	Szymon Kucharski

Tychy was able to keep its entire first line in check. That is huge given that Lyszczarczyk was attracting plenty of attention from abroad and his hometown club after his performance at the World Championship. A new second line will come after Christian Mroczkowski,  Janne Tavi, and Roman Rac all departed. Pas was looking to go abroad but found a new home in Poland. As one of the best two-way forwards in the country, he will provide scoring and keep his line positive in their zone. Joona Monto is familiar with the THL after playing with GKS Katowice over the past three years. He broke out last year with 52 points and had previously recorded 29 and 31 points. Rasmus Heljanko had plenty of Liiga experience while being a good producer in the DEL2 and Mestis. The top six retain the line that worked while completely flipping the second line. 

The changes are minor when we go to the bottom six. Viktor Turkin and Mark Viitanen had some excellent chemistry to end the year. Retaining Estonian forward Viitanen was a priority for the club and one of their first off-season moves. The fourth line previously occupied by young Polish players will now get two more imports. Matias Lehtonen returns to Poland after a year away in France’s Ligue Magnus. He was a clutch playoff performer for both of Katowice’s title runs, recording 27 points across 32 playoff games. Danila Larionovs was poached from KH Torun, where he found the back of the net 15 times in his first THL year. The bottom six will be more equipped to provide offense now, while the club will also have more flexibility to run four lines and move players up and down the lineup. 

The key thing you are seeing is a lot of proven THL talents. Only two players in the offense have not played in Poland for at least two years. They kept what worked and got rid of the rest. The top line was excellent, while Turkin and Viitanen finished strong. Larionovs, Monto, and Pas scored a combined 54 THL goals last year. Their new imports have a chance of having a significant impact.

The one who might make the most noise is 24-year-old Rasmus Heljanko. Heljanko has 109 games of Liiga experience, while he only has eight goals and 14 assists in the top Finnish league. He has been dominant at the lower levels of hockey. In 49 Mestis is games, he has 66 points (31G-35A-66PTS). In the German second league, he recorded 26 points (12G-14A-26PTS) in 30 games to end the 2024 season. His 1.36 career Mestis point per game average is the highest among any player who has appeared in both the Mestis and Poland. 

The other significant import addition to helping them score is on the defense. A fellow 24-year-old Fin, Aapo Ahola, is joining the Tychy blue line. In 259 Mestis games, he has a .72 point per game average. That is the eighth highest average among all defenders, with ten games played since 2019. Ahola has recorded over 40 points in each of the last two seasons. The only two production matches to play in Poland are Kalle Valtola and Jesse Jyrkkiö. Valtola has the second most points by any Polish defender since 2022. Jyrkkiö put up 14 points in 22 games during his short time in Poland. 

Tychy was only one of three teams not to have a defender hit over 20 THL points last year. The previous season, Tychy received only 74 points from defenders. Ahola will give them a much-needed powerplay quarterback and someone who can boost them offensively from the blue line during five-on-five as well. 

The Tychy roster is not finished. There are still players to be announced on defense, but the forward core is pretty locked up. It’s been four years since Tychy’s back-to-back titles in 2018 and 2019. Now, the club has plenty of depth while mixing imports with some of the best younger talents in Poland. The offense is much improved on paper and I think there is a lot of potential for them to be one of the THL’s strongest producers next year.

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