NHL and then?
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German ice hockey player in search of luck
Dusseldorf While Leon Draisaitl, Philipp Grubauer and Tim Stützle are celebrated as German players in the NHL, Dominik Kahun, Tom Kühnhackl and Tobias Rieder were sorted out before the season. But instead of returning to the DEL, the three are looking for their luck in other European leagues.
Ex-NHL players Dominik Kahun, Tom Kühnhackl and Tobias Rieder are no longer needed in Edmonton, New York and Buffalo. Now they are daring a new step. Kahun moved to SC Bern in Switzerland, Kühnhackl and Rieder to Sweden, to Skelleftea AIK and Växjö Lakers.
Before that, there were only two Germans with more than 100 NHL games who switched to a different league than the German. Christoph Schubert, today’s assistant coach of the Heilbronner Falken, switched from the Atlanta Thrashers to Frölunda HC in Sweden in 2010. He only played there for three months and then came back to Germany to the Hamburg Freezers. Korbinian Holzer joined the Russian Continental Hockey League (KHL) at Awtomobilist Yekaterinburg in 2020 after ten years in North America. However, he only played there for one season and then joined the Adler Mannheim. Holzer has completed a total of 211 games in the NHL. He has by far the most NHL experience of the active German DEL players. Lean Bergmann only follows me 13 NHL games.
A few years ago, however, it was common to return to Germany after the end of the NHL. Christian Ehrhoff, Marcel Goc and Marco Sturm are prominent examples of this from the last decade. Some players like Olaf Kölzig, Uwe Krupp or Dennis Seidenberg even ended their careers in the NHL. A move to Sweden or Switzerland was out of the question.
Kahun, Kühnhackl and Rieder could usher in a new era for former NHL players from Germany. If they play abroad for more than one season. The big goal for all three is a return to the NHL.
It has to be said that the legendary players like Ehrhoff and Co. all came to Germany to end their careers. Uli Hiemer is the only German with more than 100 NHL games who was under 30 when he finally returned to the DEL. However, Kahun (26), Kühnhackl (29) and Rieder (28) are all still in their prime ice hockey age. Therefore, a move to a top European league is understandable.
The Swedish Svenska Hockeyligan in particular has developed into this in recent years. Today it is considered the third best ice hockey league behind the NHL and the KHL, as a look at the league rankings of the European Champions Hockey League (CHL) shows. When the CHL was first introduced in 2008, the Russian League was rated as the strongest. Behind came the Finnish and Czech leagues. In fourth place was the Swedish, then the Slovak, the Swiss and finally the German.
But even at the European Trophy, which was held between 2010 and 2013, the Swedish teams were overwhelming. In the first year a third of the participating teams came from Sweden. In addition, two Swedish teams ended up in the top four each year.
Since the 2017/18 season, the starting places in the new version of the CHL have been allocated according to leagues. Sweden was in first place among the founding leagues (the KHL is not one of them), followed by Finland, Switzerland, the Czech Republic, Germany and Austria. The DEL is now the fourth-best league after the Swedish, Swiss and Austrian leagues. The ranking is based on the points of the performance of the respective national clubs in the past seasons and determines the number of starting places for the coming season.
From Germany, only the EHC Red Bull Munich has made it to the finals since the CHL was introduced in 2014. The Swiss league has only produced two semi-finalists so far. The CHL is dominated by Swedish clubs. Frölunda HC Göteborg has reached the finals five times in six years and has won four times. Last year, three of the top four teams were from Sweden.
In addition, the Svenska Hockeyligan also serves as a youth league. The exceptional German talent Moritz Seider moved to Sweden for a year in 2020, was named the best defender there and at the World Cup and is now under contract with the Detroit Red Wings.
The DEL has been two classes away from the NHL for several years, so players who no longer or not yet have the NHL level are looking for an intermediate level. They found this in Sweden, at the moment better ice hockey is played there than in this country.
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