The 2020 IIHF World Junior Championship is fast approaching. In a regular series of articles we present in detail the individual participants of the tournament, which will be held in Ostrava and Trinec. The first team we take a look at is Germany, which is making its return among the top divisoin. After spending the last four years in the Division IA in the U20 age category, the Germans are considered by many to be the odd team out in a very tough Group B, which includes the USA, Russia and Canada. Will this assumption come to fruition?

Ambassador’s take: Petr Briza

“The Germans will bite, scratch and hang onto their opponents’ backs. They play quite physical hockey,” predicts Petr Bríza, who was named ambassador of the German team. The former goaltender, who played in Landshut for five years, still has a strong relationship with German hockey.

“German junior hockey enjoyed a great season, with both the U18 and U20 teams returning to the top-level World Championship. But at the World Junior Championship in the Czech Republic, they’ll be playing in a group of death,” says the former long-time Sparta Prague executive. The Germans will play against the USA, Canada, Russia and the Czech Republic in the Ostravar Arena. “They have to defeat some of the big hockey countries to avoid the relegation series. They don’t have an easy road ahead of them,” Bríza emphasizes.

Historical World Junior results

The Germans have appeared among the elite on 27 previous occasions, achieving their highest placement at home as West Germany in 1981, when they finished fifth. The tournament’s top scorer, Dieter Hagen, later a DEL star in Cologne and Dusseldorf, was largely responsible for this. In both 1977 and 1980, West Germany finished in sixth place.

Since then, the German national junior team hasn’t been able to finish better than seventh, but has been relegated to the lower division nine times. After their most recent descent in 2015, the Germans had to wait four long years to return among the elite. This was, by the way, their longest wait since 1999 to 2002, when they also played four straight years in the lower division. In recent years, however, the Germans have made tremendous progress in youth hockey since developing a new player development philosophy called “Powerplay 26”.

Last season

The Germans appeared in the IIHF Ice Hockey U20 World Championship Division I Group A for the fourth year in a row. However, in the tournament last December they had an advantage over the other five teams by playing on home ice in Fussen where they received fantastic fan support.

After suffering a bit of misfortune at home in 2017, finishing two points shy of qualifying, the German juniors managed to win this tournament, beating Austria, Norway, Latvia, Belarus and France. Dominik Bokk, Justin Schutz and Moritz Seider, who are eligible to appear at the tournament this year in Ostrava and Trinec again, were particularly impressive.

Stars

Which of the Germans are worth watching? “The trio of Bokk, Seider and Stutzle,” says Bríza. “They bring creativity to this lunch-pale gang. In particular, they will lead the offence and they regularly lead the team in scoring.” 

Winger Dominik Bokk was the first-round draft pick of the St. Louis Blues. Scouts like the 19-year-old’s excellent stickhandling, one-on-one abilities and significantly above-average shot. A product of the academy in Cologne, Bokk then headed to Sweden, where he played two years in Vaxjo and now in the SHL for Rogle. At last year’s Division IA tournament, he was the top scorer and a big reason the Germans to advance to the elite group.

At the same tournament, 18-year-old Moritz Seider scored more goals than any other player and won the Best Defenceman award. After playing youth hockey in Erfurt and at the academy in Mannheim, where he played for many years with much older teammates, he is now plying his trade in North America. In this year’s NHL Draft, the Detroit Red Wings picked him in the first round, sixth overall, and Seider now plays for the AHL’s Grand Rapids Griffins. According to many scouts, Seider is one of the most interesting players of his year. He also played with the men’s national team at the 2019 IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship in Slovakia, where the young rearguard raised some eyebrows with two goals in five games.
  
And finally, we come to Tim Stutzle. Still just 17, the forward is described by many experts as the next Leon Draisaitl. Last season, he helped the German U18 team advance to this year’s elite division. At the same time, he managed to play five games for the U20 team. This year, he is playing steadily in the DEL for Adler Mannheim, where he has started brilliantly by scoring at better than a point-per-game clip. 

Coach

Tobias Abstreiter, 49, was named head coach of the German national junior team in May. “He’s worked for a long time within the German youth hockey structure. He knows most of the players very well,” Bríza said about the German bench boss. Abstreiter played in two World Junior Championships (1988 and 1989), six World Championships, and was also a member of the German team at the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics and at the 2004 World Cup. Domestically, he played in Cologne and Kassel. He started his coaching career in Landshut and spent the last four seasons as an assistant with the men’s national team.

Preparing for the championship

Ahead of the World Juniors, the Germans played in the Future Challenge tournament and the recent Four Nations tournament in Slovakia. The final camp starts on 12 December in Fussen.

Preliminary Round

27 December 2019 Germany – USA (19:00)
28 December 2019 Czech Republic – Germany (15:00)
30 December 2019 Germany – Canada (15:00)
31 December 2019 Russia – Germany (15:00)