Now for part two.
U17 - I watched a little bit (about a period worth spread across the 1st and 2nd period) of the first game, watched the whole 2nd game and nothing of the third.
With most of the top U17 players with the U18, this was actually quite intriguing to watch because I got to see a bunch of players I had not watched a lot, or at all, or at least never with particular focus on them. On defense Fabio Kose was the one who stood out a bit, while the others did a better job than I was expecting, especially defensively. No one except Kose really created much offensively. Stocker and Hempel had a couple of moments, but that's about it.
Among the forwards the were no real surprises for me. Both Grivas played better than I have seen them this season so far, but still quite far from where I saw them 1 year or 2 ago. Sebastian Zwickl and Max Ziergiebel did what I expected. Other forwards I liked (considering expectations) were Kronhardt, who was not standing out in any flashy way, but he was solid and effective, Kessler who played with more physicality than I had seen from him previously and he looked like the most skilled player out there at times. Then there was Tobin Brandt who showed a lot more than I had seen from him previously when he played for the national team. Playing a bigger role with so many forwards playing for the U18 really seemed to suit him.
And finally there was Timo Kose. The past 1-2 years I had him quite clearly behind his twin brother and I still think Fabio is the stronger prospect, but Timo looked much better out there, and also in the leagues games this season it looks like he has caught up quite a bit. I hope he can build on that.
Take all that with an even larger grain of salt, because even during the parts I watched I payed less attention to this team than any of the others.
U16 - Contrary to the initial announcement there were no streams for the first to games, so I only watched the OT loss to Austria
So, this is just based on one single game against an opponent they should have beaten. Despite of that this will be a long one with a lot of positives (I'll try to put it in perspective at the end).
Defense: I have to say I like that d-group, even with a couple of them (Kettler and Augst) not playing as well as I expected. But I have seen enough of them to not be too worried, and it's not like they sucked, they just fell slightly short of my expectations. Rolsing on the other hand, who I was disappointed with the last time I saw him, played much better this time around and while there are certainly flaws in his game, I really like his upside. Oskar Göthe was not really someone I had high on my list, but he had his moments that peaked my interest. Defnitely someone I need to give a closer look. Pizka continues to rise in my estimation and looks like a fixture for this going forward. Another kid I have probably underrated so far is Ivan Komirist. I had seen him several times before, but he always was more of an afterthought and never the focus of my viewings, but here he did very well showing a nice balance of offense and defense.
Martin Mayer confounds me a little. I don't really see that much upside in him, and would not expect him to play as big of a role as he does, but he is so damn consistent for this age. I guess he is the sort of player coaches like because you know what you get. Almost every game I have seen of him so far looked like a copy of the previous one. And while I am still not sure about his upside, I think I whould give him more props for what he does game in and game out.
Forwards: Every single one of the forwards had at least one or two moments where they showed their potential, but handful stood out above the rest. Tobias Krestan showed at least at times his superior blend of skating, puckhandling and playmaking that makes him the top forward among the 08s in my eyes. What really stood out for me this time compared to previous viewings was his work along the boards. That would be a nice addition to his skillset if he could improve this further. To my surprise Lukas Greil did not play on the same line as Krestan, but he had no problem standing out with his speed and work ethic, and also a decent shot, if somewhat lacking in accuracy this time. Both Greil and Krestan were no surprises and performed as expected. Not really a surprise, but more of a nice confirmation of their abilities were the performances of Mats Geppert and Jakub Kottner, both were key players who helped control the pace of the game for the most part and created a lot of offense and puck possession. Before I get to guy I have been itching to talk about since I watched that game, I'll give an honourable mention to Vyacheslav Permitin, who also did a very good job overall.
Finally may favourite player to watch in the game was the lone 09 born Max Penkin. I feel like at this age an additional year of development makes an even bigger difference than it does at the U20 level for example. This makes it even more impressive, that I am not sure if Penkin, Krestan or Greil was our best forward. Penkin could become a complete package if he develops the right way. He has pretty good shot, his vision and playmaking ability are both good, he has a great motor which helps with his forecheck and for the most part he also worked diligently on the defensive side. His skating is a little weird to me. He does not have the speed, acceleration or elusiveness we see from say someone like Willhöft. Speed and quickness are things I usually like to see from players that arent overly tall and/or big like Penkin, but while he looks sort of average in those areas, I still very much like another aspect of his skating. He is solid on his skates. For such a young player his core strength appears to be impressive. I will have to see him against much better competition, but in that game it jumped out at me how many times he was bumped into or he bumped into someone and I don't recall a single time where he went down. Most of the time he wouldn't even break stride or stumble or anything. Defninitely want to see more of him against teams like Switzerland or Slovakia, or even against the top nations. I am trying to keep myself from getting overly excited, but this was such a pleasant little bright spot, I am pretty sure I already lost that fight.
So, now for the much needed perspective: They lost to Austria. That should not have happened, but the whole came they kept trying to be too cute and too fancy instead of just going for the jugular. They controlled most of the possession and had the majority of the chances, but when it came to really great chances, it was pretty even, Austria may have even had a slight edge. I don't have the roster for Austria, so I don't know who he is but shoutout to their #9 who I liked a lot in this game.
There was a comical situation when Austria was on the power play and the puck was basically resting on the goal line and our goalie had slid way out of position to make a save previously. And three Austrians were not able to push the puck over the goal line. I have no idea how that happened, did one of our defenders stop them or did the Austrians interfere with each other? It was wild.
Unfortunately, there were no streams for the first two games, but I liked the statements of the coach who was pointing out some of the problems they had in those games despite the scores of 6:0 and 6:2. He said after both games that they were very efficient with their chances. Too bad they wasted all their efficiency in those games and were the opposite of efficient in this one.
Once the game went to OT, I was sure they would lose. Because as I stated in my previous post, not a single 3-on-3 I saw by any of our teams looked like they knew what they were doing. I know 3-on-3 is kind of gimmicky and there are lot of things our prospects need to be working on that will be more important to their potential careers in hockey, but I do hope at some point they'll get better at this, because it is painful to watch.
I missed the quote of Abstreiter...
