One word is enough to make Leon Draisaitl smile: Cologne. The mention of his hometown is a tried and tested icebreaker to lure the national player out of the reserve. Then a smile flashes across his bearded face before he remembers that FC is anything but cheerful at the moment.
It is Monday evening, three days before the first game of the season for Draisaitl’s Edmonton Oilers in the North American ice hockey league NHL at the Vancouver Canucks (Thursday, 4 a.m.). A small group of media from Germany has gathered in front of the screens, and the person asking the question from a popular station in Cologne has other important concerns.
For example, how Bowie is doing, Draisaitl’s dog, a Cavapoo, a mixture of a Flokati and a pound of sugar with button eyes, very cute in any case and becoming a certain social media celebrity during the pandemic as a tireless training partner in Draisaitl’s home office (” the toughest defender I’ve played against”). Draisaitl says Bowie is doing well, maybe his girlfriend needs to get back to it and post a little something “so that people get what they want.” Rule number one in showbiz: give the audience, what the audience wants, Draisaitl is no different than rock bands that have been on tour for decades with new material, but people always want to hear the same old stuff.
Draisaitl even seems happy about questions about 1. FC Köln and Bowie. He’s now 27 years old, entering his 10th season in the best hockey league in the world, and the other usual questions are: 1. Do you think the Oilers are ready for a title this year? (Subtext: finally), 2. something with Dirk Nowitzki.
In preparation, the Oilers worked with Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant’s meditation coach
Ever since Draisaitl mentioned in an interview that he wanted to become the ice hockey Nowitzki, the shining golden figurehead for athletes from Germany, he has had to explain when the time has finally come. Draisaitl has won pretty much every personal award that a player can win in one of the five highest-grossing sports leagues in the world. He was the top scorer, most valuable player (MVP), and for years he has been tearing the league apart with his strike partner Connor McDavid. Last season he broke the 100 scorer points mark (goals and assists) for the fourth time. In the past five seasons, no other player has scored as many goals as him (256), not even McDavid, 26, the only one who recently even surpassed him . What Draisaitl is missing is the title.
Nothing drives Draisaitl more than winning the Stanley Cup, the trophy for the NHL champions. It would be the first for him and the first for Edmonton since 1990. In the last two seasons, the Oilers failed against Colorado and the Vegas Golden Knights, both of which were the eventual champions. But Draisaitl can’t buy a championship ring for that. Instead, he says what he has been saying for years: “The experience from the last two years will help us.” And: “We have got good new guys.” Mattias Ekholm in particular, 33, came in a trade from Nashville in March. The Swede should help seal the Oilers’ notorious weak point, the defense.
In preparation, the Oilers worked with a meditation coach, George Mumford, who once encouraged basketball stars Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant. In any case, they don’t give up hope. Nowitzki, says Draisaitl, also “took a long approach”: the Würzburger was 32 when he won the NBA title, a week before his 33rd birthday. So Draisaitl still has time. He turns 28 in two weeks.
Open detailed view
The oldest in the group of German NHL professionals: goalkeeper Philipp Grubauer (Seattle Kraken) won the Stanley Cup with Colorado in 2018.
(Foto: Ron Chenoy/USA TODAY Sports via Reuters Con)
As far as his pioneering role is concerned, he is clearly further along. When the NHL enters its 107th season on Wednesday night, six other German professionals will be there alongside Draisaitl. Only one – goalkeeper Philipp Grubauer (Seattle Kraken), 2018 Stanley Cup winner with Colorado – is older than him, 31, Nico Sturm (San Jose Sharks) from the same year. The others are just in their early 20s.
But apart from Lukas Reichel, who is hoping for his first full NHL season for the Chicago Blackhawks alongside the talent of the century Connor Bedard, they are already indispensable pillars of their teams. Above all, Moritz Seider, 22, World Cup silver medalist, who holds the defense together for the Detroit Red Wings and is already considered one of the best defenders in the world, and Tim Stützle, 21, last season with 90 points (39 goals, 51 assists) Top scorer for the Ottawa Senators. For comparison: Draisaitl had 51 and 77 scorer points at Stützle’s age. There are also two other World Championship silver medalists in JJ Peterka (Buffalo Sabres) and Sturm.
Sturm, the newcomer of the last two NHL seasons, 2022 Stanley Cup winner with Colorado, 2023 national team debutant and immediately a leading figure in the German team on the way to the greatest World Cup success in 70 years, says: “That we have German players in important roles Having at NHL clubs is great. But we also have to make sure we continue to have young talent in this pipeline.”
World Cup silver winner Nico Sturm faces competition from a two-time world champion in San Jose
He himself is the best example of how to get into the NHL and get through it. After groin surgery in the summer of 2022, Sturm worked on his core stability this summer at home in Augsburg, in addition to the usual strength, speed and endurance values. He hit the ice at the end of July, spent three weeks preparing with his skating coach in Minnesota in August – and was in competitive shape two weeks before the start of training camp in San Jose. “My fitness levels were the best I’ve ever had,” says Sturm. As a center forward for the Sharks, he has new competition in two-time world champion Mikael Granlund from Finland. “But I will continue to play my game, stick to my strengths, work on my weaknesses and just have to earn the ice time,” says Sturm – a blueprint also for Maksymilian Szuber (Arizona Coyotes) and Leon Gawanke (San Jose), two others World Cup runners-up who were assigned to the farm teams by their organizations shortly before the start of the season.
Draisaitl is also impressed by the new German wave. “It’s outstanding. We’ve been waiting a long time for guys who can add a lot to their teams offensively.” The fact that probably the most talented player to ever come from Germany is still without a title or medal is part of the irony of sport. But it shouldn’t stay that way forever. His teammates in Edmonton have already named the area from which he scores most of his goals, half to the right of the goal, the “Rockstar Zone,” reveals Draisaitl, grinning his Cologne grin. Let’s see if he can put on a new record at the end of the 2023/24 tour, something with Stanley and Cup. That would be the hit that people would definitely love to hear.
