When I was writing “On the Clock” the toughest group to make interesting were college defensemen who did not contribute heavily on offense. The NCAA lists plus/minus, but not “even-strength goals-for and against” and so it’s difficult to get a clear picture of performance. Time on ice? Give your head a shake. So it becomes difficult to project these specific player-types into pro hockey.
The Athletic article today is about Oilers at the World Juniors. It is here.
Such is the case with Luca Munzenberger. I did rank him in the Winter top-20 for 2024. I could be wrong in a big way. By year, his rankings on my top-20: 2021 (not ranked); 2022 (19); 2023 (20), 2024 (18).
Here’s the thing: His resume is impressive. Munzenberger’s earliest scouting report (that I found) said “he was another guy who grew on me as the tournament went on. A little on the rugged side and he made that good first pass. He wasn’t on our radar prior to the tournament but he showed well and looks like a draft.” That’s from a January 2021 article.
Munzenberger played for Germany at the 2021 World Juniors, and the event was held at Rogers Place in Edmonton. Ken Holland, Tyler Wright and a large portion of the amateur staff (North American scouts) would have had access to live viewings.
Munzenberger was listed as 6.02, 190, and he would have just turned 18. He is a LHD. Playing in five games for an undermanned Germany, he scored zero points and was 3-7 in even strength goals. Here are the game stories:
- December 25 versus Finland: Munzenberger played 23:14 with one shot on goal and a -1 in a 5-3 loss to the Finns. His TOI total ranked second among defensemen on the German squad. He was 1-2 in EV goals, all three coming in the second period.
- December 26 versus Canada: Munzenberger played 23:24 and was -4 in a 16-2 loss. He was 0-4 at even strength and second again in ice time. Defenseman Simon Gnyp was -9 in the game and led German blue in ice time (29:36). Germany appears to have played the tournament with five defenders.
- December 28 versus Slovakia: Munzenberger played 25:49 and finished even in a 4-3 win for Germany. His TOI was second again (always Gnyp) and he had two shots on goal. He wasn’t on the ice for a goal in this game.
- December 30 versus Switzerland: Munzenberger played 17:26 and finished even in a 5-4 win for Germany. His TOI was fourth among rearguards, he took a penalty, played just four minutes in each of the first and second periods, and then almost nine minutes in the third period. A weird split, he led Germany in minutes during the third period. He went 1-1 in goals, but it’s a strange boxscore. Germany was up 4-0 after two and won the game 5-4. That means four goals against Germany in the third period, Munzenberger was on the ice for 8:35 (almost half the period) and one goal against in the period. So, Germany allowed three goals in the 11:25 he was off the ice. Interesting. I wonder if he was hurt for a time in the first and or second period.
- January 2 versus Russia: Munzenberger played 18:24 and finished +1 in a 2-1 loss to Russia. His TOI was fourth and again he played less than six minutes in each of the first two periods and eight minutes in the third period. Had one shot on goal, was 1-0 on ice even strength goal differential.
He is now listed at 6.02, 207 and is having (by far) his best season with Vermont. He is 4-5-9 in 15 games and is +6 this season in plus minus. This after scoring no more than 1 goal and 5 points in his first three seasons. His plus-minus by year: -17, -9, +2 and now +6 in 2024-25.
The Oilers current LH defensive depth chart at the pro level includes Mattias Ekholm, Darnell Nurse, Brett Kulak and Cam Dineen. That’s it, that’s all. Will the organization sign him in April, when his season is done? Will it be an NHL contract or an AHL-ECHL deal? Maybe he’ll get a tryout.
I am not going to predict how this goes. On the positive side, this is his best season, he has size, speed and plays with an edge. He is young (22) for a four-year college man.
In the Ken Holland-Tyler Wright era, Edmonton drafted Philip Broberg (No. 8 overall in 2019); Luca Munzenberger (No. 90 in 2021); Max Wanner (No. 212 in 2021); Nikita Yevseyev (No. 190 in 2022); Beau Akey (No. 56 in 2023).
From that group, Philip Broberg is an NHL regular with a bright future, Wanner and Akey are signed and Yevseyev is in his fourth KHL season, aged 20.
Then there’s Munzenberger, having his best season and the proud owner of foot speed on a 6.02, 207-pound frame.
Holland-Wright-Holland were good at identifying defensemen. Very good.
I’m not going to predict an NHL contract. I do believe it’s a reasonable bet.
On the downside? In the words of the great hockey scout Nick in “It’s a Wonderful Life” Stan Bowman and Rick Pracey don’t know Munzenberger “from Adam’s off ox” and that is often the determining factor.
When management changes, sons and brothers become distant cousins and distant bells. That’s a fact. Ask Philip Broberg and Dylan Holloway.
It’s not in the New York Groove(far as I know), but it’s back.
Akey finally gets a shift and provides a beauty set-up on a cross-seam pass that is foiled last second. On for the ensuing offensive zone faceoff and, while not part of the play, a great Canada forecheck and pressure leads to a turnover and a goal.
I thought he looked solid in his few shifts in the first period as well. Similar to Fischer where it’s tough to see much in limited mins but just love watching his skating at the very least.
Looks like Akey is starting as the 7th D. Maybe three shifts that period.
Merry Christmas, everyone. Let’s hope for a great game tonight. Have excellent times with the family.
Paul Fischer has only played about 6 shifts thru 2 periods so far by my eye but certainly has not looked out of place at all.
After a giveaway on his first shift has been playing rocking chair D out there, albeit against an inferior opponent. Moves VERY well in all 4 directions. Played the right side his last shift and got a nice secondary assist from his point shot.
Hoping he plays a bit more with this game out of hand now.
The US defence, as a group, had a rough game – that should get Fischer more ice time but, then again, he was part of the pain giving the puck away from a goal against.
With the coaching carousel in full operation, who will be the next jockey to be replaced? The rides of veterans Lindy Ruff and Peter Laviolette can’t be too secure, The Sabres got off to a decent start clinging to a wild card spot at the quarter pole and the Rangers were up with the front runners at that point. Alas, those New York teams are finding out the NHL season is even longer than the race at their state’s famous Belmont Park. But while the Triple Crown runners can’t switch jockeys mid race, many NHL teams have salvaged their race with a mid season substitute (The Bruins, Wings and Blues are hoping it works for them this year – the though the Blues are likely thinking both short and long term).
Wouldn’t it be an ironic if the Rangers, should they move on from Laviolette, bring in Jay Woodcroft to try and get back in the race? After all, Knoblauch was the Rangers’ Jockey in waiting on the farm, only to be grabbed by the Oilers to unseat Woodcroft after their start last season: the high strung team pretty much crashed into the starter’s gate before it opened and proceeded to watch most of the field disappearing around the first turn before they even started to run. However, the Rangers might hire Woodcroft in hopes that he could repeat his late season heroics guiding the Oilers back into the playoffs in 2022.
He probably won’t get the job, if available, but if he did, it would also be fun to watch Jay handle the New York media. He can come across as thinking he is smarter than the media, but that is because he is (as are most coaches about hockey). The media doesn’t like having that pointed out to them though and they have the pens (keyboards).
MacTavish has a better chance then Woody at getting the Job.
Chris Peters posted the lineup for the US today – Paul Fischer is listed on the 4th line – blah.
At least he is in the lineup over 2024 giant 2nd rounder Adam Kleber. Hoping to see him get a few shifts in as the 7D. Suspect that may occur on the PK given his skillset.
Check that, Peters was great and responded to me and confirmed that Fischer is dressing. I don’t know if its a 6D or 7D set up but he’s playing.
Game is at 12:30 mountain.
Todd Mclellan, he of 9 lives, is hired to fix the hockey team in Motor City.
The problem with the Yzerplan of course is that half the players on the Wings roster are replacement-level.
Good luck, Todd!
Maybe that’s the why – prior experience
Some help could be on the way.
RD Axel Sandin-Pellikka with 3G 1A 10SOG in the WJHC game against Slovakia today.
Detroit picked him 17TH overall in the 2023 draft.
“Sandin Pellikka is an offensive defenceman with legitimate first-unit power play upside. His puck skills, playmaking, shot, and the ability to walk an offensive blue line make him a credible scoring threat with the puck on his stick, as does his ability to process options and make plays at speed off the rush. The Swedish blueliner is an engaged defender, particularly stout between the blue lines and along the boards.”
https://www.eliteprospects.com/player/534818/axel-sandin-pellikka
They’ve been hearing that for the last decade. I think the Yzerplan has failed
Unpopular opinion but nevertheless, I seriously find it hilarious that Oilers fans can criticize any teams rebuild.
if not for McDavid, Draisaitl & yes, a bit of Holland, the Oilers would have remained in a perpetual rebuild……..Oilers rebuild was that bad.
it lasted longer than a decade…..
Ahh here’s the thing:
You have to be committed to being really bad. For longer than you’d care to. We suffered for a decade as Oiler fans until we got lucky.
You need to draft top-5 at least 4 or 5 times because the prospects won’t always emerge into top talents. Eg. Yakupov, or Zadina, or Turcotte.
Detroit, like Los Angeles, didn’t commit to being bad enough, long enough. The mushy middle is all they can aspire to climb toward.
San Jose, Montreal and Anaheim, on the other hand, are harvesting top talent over a longer cycle. They’re letting it simmer a bit longer, managing player growth and development (as well as fans’ expectations) so that they will come out of it eventually.
Calgary … may draft between 5 and 10 for a decade 🙂
Detroit 1st round draft picks last 6 seasons:
2019 #6
2020 #4
2021 #6 #15
2022 #8
2023 #9 #17
2024 #15
2025 Currently projected #6 with a chance to move up in the lottery.
Drafting higher than that would require high level incompetence or, as in the Oilers case, dumb luck.
Sure but that’s pretty much the point of a rebuild to collect high picks and turn them into franchise caliber players who in turn eat up a good portion of cap.
So where would the Avs be without Mackinnon and Makar and Rantaneb
What would the pens have done without Crosby and Malkin
Toronto without Matthews Marner
Devils without Hughes Hischier
Washington without Ov
Pretty much every contender has their lotto pick on their roster except for Vegas who took someone else’s lotto picks
and can’t forget all the fanfare the Yzerman hire was accompanied with.
but management was a key part in having Drai part of this – it wasn’t a crazy reach pick but I think he was below Bennett on many list.
Reinhart is now an elite player but he never provided that in Buffalo or in the trade return for him.
Buffalo didn’t draft Drai – Oilers did draft Drai (and it wasn’t a no-brainer) – management mattered in the 2014 draft, no?
Yzerman has only been the GM in Detroit since 2019.
While they haven’t made much progress in the standings, the wealth of talent harvested through the draft is very impressive.
2019 Moritz Seider
2020 Lucas Raymond, William Wallinder
2021 Simon Edvinsson, Sebastian Cossa
2022 Marco Kasper
2023 Axel Sandin-Pellikka, Nate Danielson, Trey Augustine
With blue chip prospects on D and in goal as well as some promising forwards to add to Dylan Larkin, Alex DeBrincat and Lucas Raymond I expect they will soon see some progress,
Of course they are headed for another high first round pick in 2025 and will have about $25 million in free cap space next season.
The 2025 draft is loaded with high end forwards at the top so they should be able to snag one especially if the lottery breaks in their favour.
McLellan has a well established reputation as able to coach teams into the playoffs although never being able to get them over the top.
He has a lot to work with in Detroit.
So we’re supposed to be scared of a team that has accomplished nothing in 5 years under their GM because he “has a lot to work with?” Yeah I’m not buying that. 5 years as a GM is an age in the NHL and they’ve gone all the way from the mushy middle to… the mushy middle. Big whoop.
Dylan Larkin is 28 years old and has played played a full season 2 of his 9 seasons in the league. Debrincat is 27 and is on pace for his worst season since 2019-20. There’s a solid chance they don’t even factor into when the red wings are finally good again.
It will take time.
By then the Oilers will be in their age-related decline so no need to be scared.
He inherited Larkin and by the sounds of it will have to replace Larkin soon. Also most GMs do not get a half decade freebie. Another year like this one and he’s gone if not sooner
DeBrincat is on pace for 31 goals and 60 points.
Pretty much the same as the last 2 seasons.
2020-21 – 1.08 points per game
2021-22 – 0.95
2022-23 – 0.80
2023-24 – 0.82
2024-25 – 0.73
I’m fine with my claim that he’s showing signs of potential decline, and at age 27, may not factor into when they’re good again.
Yzerman is the 8th longest tenured current GM in the league. We’re far enough into it we can make the call. He is not a good GM. And I say that as someone who definitely thought he was a good GM when he joined the DRW.
You have been hyping up Yzerman and Detroit every year since he started.
Most of your posts about other teams are just different versions of the boy who cried wolf.
Holy hell. Really? Yzerman has been wildly disappointing. I wanted him to do well because he actually went to school in Tampa and learned the business. That ran counter to Oilers superstars, who basically announced their readiness to coach, etc.
Detroit has drafted some fine players, but they don’t make that next step to become something special. It’s killed them, from the end of the Holland tunnel to the long and meandering road that is the Yzerplan.
JP and I previously discussed this at length. My one regret is not finding a robust comment search feature.
My assertion at the time was that the failed Yzerplan was largely due to poor drafting from the Wright era.
I know that JP and others have disagreed with me. I still believe it to be a core issue.
Google is as close as it comes.
put in lowetide and your name and comment you are looking for
How long do you think a total rebuild should take?
Yzerman inherited a derelict team from Holland in April 2019.
Point totals in each season since.
39
48
74
80
91
This season is trending in the wrong direction which is why Yzerman changed coaches.
It remains to be seen if that is the issue.
I think what Yzerman is showing that to be a good GM you need a boatload of good luck and some great scouts
They shipped Brock Faber out of LA for that Fiala fellow for McLellan. They sent Durzi to Utah. Bouchard spent two extra seasons in London because McLellan wouldn’t play him.
McClelland played him for 7 games at the start of the season, right after they drafted him. Chiarelli sent him back to the minors for his one and only season in London after being drafted. The one year in London was good for Bouchard’s development and good for the Oilers to slide his contract. McLellan was fired just over 2 weeks later, only 5 months after Bouchard had been drafted. There was never 2 extra seasons in London!
Faber was never in LA. His rights were traded while he was still in College and he never attended a camp. He didn’t sign his first NHL contract with Minnesota till 9 months after the trade. McLellan would not likely not have even been asked his opinion about Faber. Meanwhile Fiala has be been LA’s second highest point scorer the prior 2 seasons and is 4th on the team this year.
In your eyes, McLellan is probably responsible for droughts, hurricanes, earthquakes and tsunami’s too.
There it is, I think its official now – that’s 31 teams all trending better than the Oilers!
Todd McLellan the new head coach in Detroit.
https://www.nhl.com/news/todd-mclellan-named-detroit-coach-replacing-fired-derek-lalonde
I wonder what Patrick Kane thinks about volume shooting! -). Or the 1-3-1.
As of Boxing Day 2024 Oilers sit more or less at the top of the NHL power lists.
Despite the very best efforts of the HH side of this blog, the consensus appears to be that this team, once McDavid signs on the dotted line are in for anywhere between 1-3 cup wins.
No idea what the rest of you watch but whenever I see other NHL teams I never see anything like the Oilers McDavid Draisaitl-McDavid-Hyman combination.
I have no idea where or how the AI found Hyman as being worthy of this Oilers power list.
This is true but, at the same time, Bowman and Pracey have both talked about not expecting a ton of draft picks in the next while and needing to find players from various, and even unique, sources.
I would think they would be looking to keep the drafted and partially developed players from prior regimes – well, at least doing full diligence on them with an eye to identifying those they want to keep.
Decisions on Munzenburger and Berezkin are coming – I think they are “easy signs” for the club (for sure on Berezkin), you know, if the player wants to.
Oilers love to toss draft picks into the firmament.
Oilers want players ready to step up.
Same way Ken Holland didn’t know John Marino from Adam Fox.
Not a one of you liked my pun? I’m crushed.
the main reason any of us (prrobably including Holland) didn’t know what Marino might become is that for all three years he was at Harvard he was 2RD behind Fox,who soaked up all the offensive opportunities & boxcars. Turned out they were both pretty good & made the jump directly to the NHL, albeit not with the team that drafted them in either case. To this day, neither has played a game inthe minors.
I recall Munzenburger in the 2021/22 World Juniors and was very heartened by what I saw. He was a prominent player for Team German and I saw a “range of skills” and offensive instincts that heartened me.
That tournament was cut short but Munzenburger put himself on the map for me.
Of course, since then, he has somewhat languished in a poor program at Vermont but he has popped this season as a two-way d-man.
I was always thinking that maybe an AHL deal would be the play but I am all for an NHL ELC as soon as Vermont’s season is done. It will be a 2-year ELC, given his age and, to be honest, I’m fine with burning the first year of it by playing in Bako at the end of this season. The other option would be for the ELC to start next year and have him play in Bako on an ATO for this season – or, of course, an AHL deal.
I have “Kesslering vibes” from this player – I saw Kesselring as a lanky due with a broad range of skills that were raw but where there. I see Munznburger a bit the same way – he is scoring just as much as Kesselring did in college.
There is a player here – its going to be a while like it was with Kesselring but he’s get a chance, I think.
Am I crazy or just old but I believe in the WJC although left hand shot, I think he played right D several times.
Yup, found this video of him versus Russia, he’s number 27.
https://www.google.com/search?sca_esv=c7d8016326faa797&rlz=1C5CHFA_enUS697US698&q=luca+munzenberger+german+hockey+wjc&udm=7&fbs=AEQNm0Aa4sjWe7Rqy32pFwRj0UkWd8nbOJfsBGGB5IQQO6L3JzWreY9LW7LdGrLDAFqYDH2Z7s7jqgHIAW8PVnwe_sR_e-RCOLF8PNV6cgrvTe9W1QlY3sOMCnrD6DpPmucUF3Q4DWCnbUQ16OCFEw0bA3f-zorCYPCwItkuWVcknbOv4-nN1bzai1VYTk7zJThGO9aVJKR1TUIesAdeoQ7gAi3QfFsX3Q&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjv4IGK7cWKAxUvhIkEHWSsJw8QtKgLegQIDRAB&biw=2100&bih=1048&dpr=1.33#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:825ff937,vid:tfdk1IIWQ68,st:0
He is a very promising prospect for sure. He has all of the tools to succeed. I have never been a fan of using draft picks on players with major issues to overcome that we have seen over the years stops most
Size and skating being the two biggest hurdles, followed by personal drive and mental make up. To me it seems that if a player is smaller their path to the NHL is plus offensive talent, hockey IQ and plus skating, which is sort of self explanatory. Akey checks those boxes. You have to be able to avoid the bigger players and compete with them, and if you don’t produce better than average at some point teams want a bigger player
For typical size or large players you have to have NHL skating, and have enough game to get things done. Players lacking somewhat in those things usually have to bring edge and physicality, a player has to provide a reason for teams to employ them
This is catching up with Desharnais I think, even with his physicality and PK work, I’m not sure he’s got enough game and mobility. Wanner and Clattenburg check those boxes so have opportunity so far. Munzenburger has size, skating and some edge. There are different roles needed, having the ability to fill one well enough is the key for less skilled players
Given the new emphasis on player development lots of up arrows for him and the other prospects