For the German ice hockey scene, the 2018 Olympics was its own little miracle on ice.

Even now, four years later, thoughts of the silver medal earned in PyeongChang send shivers up the spine of each and every fan of Germany’s national team. 

The achievement was of immense importance for the German Ice Hockey Association and the sport itself in Germany. The attention given to the team and medal earned had seldom been seen at this level throughout national media and via the messages, both written and spoken, by politicians, talk show hosts, and other athletes from across the socio-political spectrum.

And as amazingly pivotal and wonderful as it was for this program and the sport itself, the German national team has now travelled to Beijing with unfinished business.

Catching lightning in a bottle

“We were in the final and played to win gold. That was what we were after. And right at that moment, when that power-play goal was scored in overtime, we had lost the gold. Unfortunately, this is our reality, and this is how you have to frame it,” states team captain Moritz Muller emotionally when thinking of the rollercoaster moments that ultimately saw Germany grab silver from the jaws of gold.

It was an amazing turn of events. On the one hand, Germany defeating nations like Sweden and Canada to get to a final against the Olympic Athletes from Russia was a thoroughly unexpected achievement in and of itself. Coming back from a deficit to tie things up 2-2 was even more impressive.

Then Germany managed to take a 3-2 lead when Jonas Muller, a defenceman, looked like a seasoned forward in the slot and snapped a shot in with less than three minutes to go.
“I was like ‘Ok, what just happened?’,” ponders the younger Muller when looking back at that goal. “I wasn’t doing a lot of thinking at that moment. I’m not really the type to show much emotion, but it just came out there. It was, right then and there, such an incredibly fantastic feeling.”

But that feeling would soon dissipate. And admittedly under the most dubious of circumstances. With less than two minutes to go, Germany got a power play. With a 3-2 lead, all the team had to do for gold was wind down the clock. 

Easier said than done.

“There was some, well, panic in our game,” relates forward Matthias Plachta in trying to describe what exactly took place. “In the aftermath, you always know better. But in essence, we just needed to hold the puck away from the opponent for two minutes. We had a power play. We just needed to keep the puck in their zone and move it around. They wouldn’t be able to take out their goalie. You do this, you’ll probably win the game.”

Instead, the OAR team made use of an unnecessary risk on Germany’s behalf while in the opposition zone, able to get into Germany’s zone. This allowed them to pull their goalie for some empty-net 5-on-5 play. Although never really able to set up properly in Germany’s zone, a free puck in the slot was laid upon by a German defender who, for whatever reason, decided to get up rather than to remain on top of the puck, which would have led to a face-off, or at worst to having taken a delay-of-game penalty in the process. 

Swept to the side out of the slot, Nikita Gusev pounced on the puck and was able to get off a desperation backhand shot from a bad angle to go over the shoulder of goaltender Danny aus den Birken, tying the game at three.

“There was a hole there that was only big enough for a puck. And it went right through it,” says 2018 Olympian Marcel Goc looking back at that back-breaking moment in time, holding his hands just slightly apart. “Whoa. As a team, we just had to find a way to cope with that one.” 

But it wasn’t over, and the game went to overtime. The Olympic Athletes from Russia had definitely gotten the wind back in its sails and Germany needed to get back into the swing of things quickly. However, it got itself in the penalty box. As fate would have it, Kirill Kaprazov one-timed a feed from Gusev and ended Germany’s dreams of gold.

This lingers to this day in aus den Birken’s memories.

A sentiment that vividly paints the bitterness of defeat when one is so close to victory. And yet, the disappointment was soon followed by a medal presentation that honoured oh so much more than the last five minutes of the Olympic final.
 
“You know, it’s one of those things,” aus den Birken continues. “In the one second, I had that knife in my heart when that puck flew by. In the next, that silver medal was being hung around my neck, something you dream of your entire life. It always felt so impossibly far away and then, there it was, right in my hand. And you realize what an incredible point in time that is. It’s amazing. It’s like ‘When am I going to wake up from this dream?’”

Well, it’s time to go to work on the next dream. 

The team caught lightning four years ago, but there’s nowhere to go but up in this Olympics. Surely, that vantage point may be an unnecessary point of pressure in light of all the cards being mixed anew, and yet it’s the logical consequence when you can’t end the tournament with the claim “mission accomplished”. 

A gold is to be had and the prerequisites of this tournament are now looking quite a bit like they did when Germany took its silver. They’re back in Asia and the NHLers are out. Speaking of which, the team has a few older ex-NHLers and the odd young guy who still has his eyes on a future in North America, but once again consists primarily of players plying their trade in the country’s own DEL.

Furthermore, there’s once again a man on the bench who has the team motivated, and his eyes are on the prize. But this time, it’s a new bench boss.

New coach for a new challenge

Without a doubt, former NHLer Marco Sturm played an incredible role in making Germany a medal contender back in 2018. Just several years removed from his own NHL career, the team’s head coach proved to be just the right man at the right time in bringing the boys together, getting them to believe in themselves and put in the effort necessary to go the distance. It seemed everything he touched turned to gold, well except for that silver medal.

He’s now an assistant coach with the Los Angeles Kings and finding his replacement was something many felt would be too daunting a task. But something fortunate happened. The federation found someone right in their very own backyard, deciding to go with Toni Soderholm. The Finn was in the midst of coaching his second season with 3rd league Riessersee in Garmisch-Partenkirchen after having just hung up his skates in 2016 as a DEL champion with Red Bull Munich. An unassuming find, Soderholm has held the position ever since the 2018/19 season.

The Olympics are now a new experience for him, having taken in the experience of the silver medal much like the rest of us four years ago. “I watched that game from home, or maybe even at the ice rink. In other words, I was in Munich. I wasn’t able to see all of the games, but I did watch the first game of the tournament (which was against Finland), and the last four games live as well,” reminisces Germany’s since then highly successful head coach.

For the program and the players, Soderholm has proven to be an absolute boon. He’s picked up where Sturm left off and has pitched in a new tactical direction that has the team no longer focusing on what the opponents do but forcing the opponents to have to adjust to them.

“Everything stands or falls with the coach. We were so extremely fortunate that Marco Sturm took on this challenge and sparked us. He once again taught us how to believe in ourselves,” explains Captain Muller about the evolution of the team in the transition from Sturm to Soderholm. “Then came our immense fortune to find Toni. He didn’t just continue what Marco had started. He then took us to a new tactical playing level.”

Since he started coaching just a few years ago, Soderholm has consistently been winning and his teams have consistently been playing a more designed and engineered form of hockey. As a development coach with Munich, he won two more DEL championships in 2017 and 2018. In 2018, he was also named Coach of the Year in the DEL2, where he coached his first season with the aforementioned Riessersee, which would drop into the third league the season thereafter for off-ice reasons. In 2019, he served as an assistant coach with the U20 team that gained promotion at the Division IA tournament in Fussen. In 2021, his World Championship team finished fourth overall and then went undefeated in last fall’s Deutschland Cup. 

All this has been in preparation for the big challenge that now awaits in Beijing, one that will require just the right mix of skill and determination. Putting that puzzle together in nominating the Olympic team has led to the group of 25 players all now practicing daily in China.

In line with the vision

As is the case for all of the nations, decisions had to be made about who was going to represent his country at these games. Germany’s recent development meant that Soderholm had more legitimate options to suss through than previous coaches, a luxury not afforded to a few other participants.

The man in goal for the silver medal was aus den Birken. Currently 36, he’s still once again part of the goaltending equation. Matthias Niederberger is the player who is expected to be the starter this time around. In recent years, he’s become the DEL’s most notable goaltender and led Berlin to a DEL championship last season. Shortly thereafter, he was in goal for a highly successful World Championships, where he was affectionately donned “The Kraken from Riga”, due in part to some spectacular saves that required him to stretch his limbs to extraordinary lengths. That he’d be part of the team was likely a given, regardless of whether NHLers would be available.

One surprise for many German fans is that Dustin Strahlmeier was not nominated, with Felix Bruckmann gaining the third nomination in goal. Strahlmeier stood in goal during the Deutschland Cup in November and put up spectacular numbers. He also led his Wolfsburg Grizzlies to the DEL final last year and has been one of the league’s up-and-comers for several years. Of course, Bruckmann has not only been part of the DEB goaltending situation for much of the last decade, having been part of a number of WC teams, but is also in the midst of a fantastic season with goals against average below two and a topflight .922 save percentage, numbers akin to Strahlmeier’s.

“The decision-making process for the Olympics has been going on for a long time now. I’ve been gathering data and collecting my experience for over three years now. That led me to my decisions,” explains coach Soderholm. “I feel that a certain amount of international experience is required for this tournament. We’ve now got three goalies who have each played in all possible situations and have won something along the way. That served as criteria for my decision, and this is the decision I’ve made. Still, Strahlmeier’s time will come.“

This decision-making process was recently altered considerably when the NHL dropped out of the Olympic picture shortly before Christmas. This naturally appeared to switch things up considerably for a number of nations, but Germany wasn’t necessarily one of them. 

“We were prepared for this. I already had an alternative scenario in place should NHL players not be available. In other words, we had been planning right from the beginning with two possible teams. As such, we weren’t faced with any sudden challenge when the NHL made its announcement,” clarifies Soderholm. 

As can be expected, there are some fresh faces in comparison to the 2018 team, but Germany is clearly building off the experience made since the last Olympics. The line-up includes 11 players who are returnees from Pyeongchang. In total, 21 of the players were part of last spring’s World Championship outfit in Riga. Of the final nominees, four are ex-NHLers and all four were playing NHL hockey as late as the 2019-20 season, several even up to last season (Tobias Rieder and Dominik Kahun).

“Yes and no,” says Soderholm. “A player’s current condition and form have also played a considerable role in his being nominated. In addition, new faces bring in new impulses. Still, a majority of the team was indeed in Riga and these players now build the core of our team.”

As such, those Olympians who were not in Riga are Bruckmann, long-time DEL captain Konrad Abeltshauser, 2018 OL internal top scorer Patrick Hager, long-time DEL top scorer Daniel Pietta, and Olympic returnee heavyweight David Wolf. In short, the team may very well be the most homogenous and well-oiled unit at the tournament.

What’s demanded for gold

It would look like Germany is understandably looking to medal based on experience and continuity. And for outsiders looking in, Germany could be seen as having an advantage heading in. Not only is the team the reigning silver medallist, but it’s filled with veterans from that and recent tournaments. It’s missing out on a considerably lower percentage of players who’d have come over from the NHL than is the case for hockey’s traditional superpowers. And all that chemistry its line-up does, on paper, look to be at a level that most other teams simply are not in possession of. 

But Soderholm wants to hear nothing about any apparent advantages. “What is being achieved by being considered to have advantages? Not a thing. As a coach and player, you have the obligation to prepare yourself accordingly, one way or the other. After all, this tournament is not about who has more advantages, but rather who’s the last man standing when all is said and done.”

Confidence and readiness to sacrifice are there. Those are things this group is oozing. And they’ll be necessary for anything achieved at the tournament. His team is playing in an almost different stratosphere from the traditional thoughts on hockey, a part of his convincing philosophy on how Germany will be able to take the next step at these games. 

“We’re not concentrating on deciding between defence and offense because one cannot exist without the other. You can conduct your offensive game while playing defence, but you’ve got to be thinking about how to defend while attacking. As such, we view all situations as those with the puck and those without the puck,” says Soderholm, giving insight to a train of thought your average fan may never have come into contact with.

And since 2018, the team has been very positive and capable of evening out those lows that can get players and teams off track. “But you have to constantly work on this. It doesn’t happen if you don’t work. Everyone involved needs to remain on the ball. This is incredibly important. Lots of thought is put into how all the gears fit in with each other. Meanwhile, the players need to be concerned with whether they are playing the best hockey they can play and doing everything necessary to win,” furthers Soderholm, displaying how going for it all is a recipe with many ingredients.

Path to gold

Everyone knows that the playoff round of any given league or tournament is a season of its own, with its own rules, but going into the tournament, Germany knows it has some challenges right off the bat in a group featuring both Canada and the USA. Sure, the three are joined by host China, which would not be here if it weren’t the host, but this squad isn’t a bunch of kids from Harbin and Qiqihar. It predominantly consists of players from KHL team Kunlun Red Star including several North American trainer players of Chinese descent.

“The USA and Canada are naturally always favourites. And China is basically fielding a KHL team and cannot be underestimated. Several of those players have even played in the NHL or have considerable NHL ties,” says forward Leon Bergmann, who was in Green Bay playing USHL hockey when the last Olympics took place. “But we can beat any team. That’s something we’ve proven at the last two World Championships, where we beat the respective eventual champions in preliminary round group play in each case. This tournament is a short one and anything can happen.”

For Soderholm, everything needs to be viewed with the necessary caution. “The Americans will have some very strong technical players coming from college, where a fast game is played. Canada is definitely a very experienced team, and we know that they want to decide the game right in front of the goal. China will be the great unknown in the group. I feel the greatest danger is in thinking that we’re simply the better team. We are going to have to prove that.”
“I’m concentrating on the first game and then the process going into games two and three, with the goal of making sure there’s a game four. It doesn’t matter who we’ll play against, we have to play a real strong game to make sure there’s a fifth game. Then things will get interesting,” he continues.

But the staff constantly pounds into the team that they are not there to react, but rather to have the other teams react to what Germany is doing. They are to set the tone and that’s something Soderholm has brought to the table. For many years, which wasn’t the key to being competitive for Germany, but now it’s part of the expectation.

“Naturally, the Russians are strong and there’ll be not path to gold without going through the Finns,” shares the head coach. “I feel the Swedes are going to be better than the team they sent to the World Championships while Switzerland will be strong enough to throw its name in the hat. In addition, the Czechs will be bringing an extremely experienced team to the party. But the others are also going to have to beat us first.”

Eager to hit the ice and create new memories

”This is naturally an incredible feeling. I think every athlete dreams about being in the Olympics during their childhood. Everyone in the team is excited and can’t wait to get there and get started,“ shares Tom Kuhnhackl, a former Stanley Cup winner who currently plays with his teammate Stefan Loibl for Skelleftea in the SHL. That players like himself and Tobias Rieder can be so excited and enthusiastic about the upcoming tasks despite so many other experiences before these, including having played together for Landshut’s professional men’s team as teenagers a little over a decade ago, is the type of thing that could be a deciding factor when it comes down to making things happen in critical situations.

But excitement and a joie de vivre are only part of the story. There are expectations and this team will have to deal with what comes with being the reigning silver medallist.

For sure, one of the chief stories of this Olympics will be whether Team Germany can catch lightning in a bottle for a second time.

The team and its coach are set to make that a reality and feel they already on path to doing just that.