At the end of June, some observers of the German Ice Hockey League (DEL) rubbed their eyes in surprise. That’s when the Augsburg Panthers, who had narrowly avoided relegation three times in the previous three seasons, announced the signing of Alexandre Grenier, one of the league’s most eye-catching strikers. Grenier’s 189 scorer points in 213 DEL games speak for themselves, but are not everything. “He can play as a center and winger, is good at the face-off point, has a precise and hard shot, wins many duels, is a right-handed shooter and is extremely physically strong,” exulted Augsburg’s sports director Larry Mitchell. The question of the Augsburg royal transfer of the summer was clarified with this personnel.
In Cologne, Grenier recently formed one of the most dangerous strike formations in the league together with national player Justin Schütz, who has since moved to Mannheim, and Gregor MacLeod. Grenier scored 27 times last season alone, in which the Sharks made it to the playoff final. He also scored regularly in Augsburg’s preparation for the season, but as soon as the DEL started, the Canadian didn’t score again – and that can also take its toll on an experienced striker like the 33-year-old. The wait was over at the weekend: Grenier scored a total of three times – and the Panthers won both games: They followed up a 2-1 home win after extra time against the Grizzlys Wolfsburg with a 5-3 win at the Schwenninger Wild Wings on Sunday. With their third win in a row, they have a sniff of the direct playoff places and are already ten points ahead of the relegation zone after ten match days.
Grenier didn’t have to get used to the center forward position for long
Augsburg’s new head coach Bill Peters was already very happy with the Canadian before Grenier’s goal debut. With his overview, he ensured that his line created a proper offensive; He did it “phenomenally,” Peters said last week. A decision by the experienced coach, who has already coached in the NHL, may have helped Grenier to use his playmaking qualities as well as his goal-scoring qualities: Peters used him again as a center forward, not as a winger like at the beginning of the season. Sunday’s game in Schwenningen was only the fourth in which Grenier played center between Alexander Blank and Anthony Louis, but the three seem to have already found each other. Grenier said that Blank was playing on the right wing for the first time, and he also had to get used to being a center forward again.
On Sunday, he made it clear why Grenier is one of the most feared shooters in the league. Positioned behind the goal line, he realized that Schwenningen’s goalkeeper Michael Bitzer was not in an ideal position and shot him so cleverly that the disc bounced off the goalkeeper’s body and into his goal. “He shoots from everywhere, including from behind the goal – and apparently the disc goes in for him,” said Moritz Elias with a smile on Magentasport after Grenier’s second goal of the day. “We simply need a player like that.” Coach Peters also sees it that way: he sends Grenier on the ice for around 21 minutes per game; no striker in the league gets that much ice time.
Grenier has had an unusual path to professional ice hockey. The Canadian from Quebec often played ice hockey with his friends as a child, but it wasn’t until he was 18 that he joined a junior team. In the motherland of ice hockey, where many children play for clubs as young as five, this is extremely late. In a training camp he got the chance to show himself in the second highest junior league in Quebec, and a year later he was already playing in the highest league. He played so convincingly there that the Vancouver Canucks drafted him at the end of the season.
Marc Eichmann, ex-sports director of the SCL Tigers in the Swiss elite league, for whom Grenier played in 2021 and 2022, described the Canadian as a “late bloomer”; Eichmann is not aware of any similar career path into professional ice hockey. Being drafted in the NHL draft after just two years with the club is extraordinary – and had a lot to do with Grenier’s special talent. His overview of the game and passing quality are a gift “that you have or don’t have, you can’t learn something like that,” explained Eichmann. In Augsburg they are happy to have Grenier on their side now.
