German Prospects for the NHL Draft

[Maverick41]

What's happening with DNL? Why so many exceptional statuses? Why has it never been awarded to other good players before? If the 07 harvest, for example, was excellent and no one received it.

Well, it's not really that surprising that it hasn't happened before. The DNL has only been an U20 league for like 6 or 7 years, I think.
So, when players like Seider or Stützle were 15 they did play in the DNL, but it was an U19 league at the time, so it wasn't really comparable. And I am not sure there was even such an option for 14-year-olds to play U19, which also wouldn't be the same as playing U20 at 15.

So, really the only birthyears we could look at are 2003 and later.
And if we do that:
2003 - Not really any standout players that should have warranted consideration for exceptional status.
2004 - Julian Lutz may have been an option, but he was playing with Salzburg in the Czech U20 league at the time, if I reacll correctly.
2005 - see 2003
2006 - see 2003 and 2005
2007 - Honestly, while the 2007 group is pretty good and deep, the only possible candidates would have been Willhöft, Händel or Lewandowski.
Händel and Willhöft spent at least parts of their season in Sweden. Lewandowski may have been deserving, but far from a lock.
2008 - Not really any true standouts, and the only ones that could have come close were/are not playing in Germany.

Will be interesting to see if this really becomes more common.
I had been very skeptical about the 2010 group, but I am beginning to warm up to some these players. Some of 2011s started to look intriguing last season, but it is way too early to predict if anybody might become a candidate for exceptional status 2 years from now.

 

[JotAlan]

Well, it's not really that surprising that it hasn't happened before. The DNL has only been an U20 league for like 6 or 7 years, I think.
So, when players like Seider or Stützle were 15 they did play in the DNL, but it was an U19 league at the time, so it wasn't really comparable. And I am not sure there was even such an option for 14-year-olds to play U19, which also wouldn't be the same as playing U20 at 15.

So, really the only birthyears we could look at are 2003 and later.
And if we do that:
2003 - Not really any standout players that should have warranted consideration for exceptional status.
2004 - Julian Lutz may have been an option, but he was playing with Salzburg in the Czech U20 league at the time, if I reacll correctly.
2005 - see 2003
2006 - see 2003 and 2005
2007 - Honestly, while the 2007 group is pretty good and deep, the only possible candidates would have been Willhöft, Händel or Lewandowski.
Händel and Willhöft spent at least parts of their season in Sweden. Lewandowski may have been deserving, but far from a lock.
2008 - Not really any true standouts, and the only ones that could have come close were/are not playing in Germany.

Will be interesting to see if this really becomes more common.
I had been very skeptical about the 2010 group, but I am beginning to warm up to some these players. Some of 2011s started to look intriguing last season, but it is way too early to predict if anybody might become a candidate for exceptional status 2 years from now.

So looking from this perspective, do you believe that the 3 are so good and worthy?
And another question: Do you consider the 3 best that Spath, Os Grivas, Schneider, Lewandowski were at 15?

 

[Maverick41]

So looking from this perspective, do you believe that the 3 are so good and worthy?
And another question: Do you consider the 3 best that Spath, Os Grivas, Schneider, Lewandowski were at 15?

Penkin without a doubt, playing U17 would be a waste of his time. He has the necessary talent to play U20 and maybe more importantly at this point he has the physical maturity. I think at the same age he is noticeably better than any of the 07s, but not at the same level as Tim Stützle was.

Schwarz doesn't surprise me and I think it is good for him to play at this level already, but I am not sure I see him playing there the rest of the season. I think he can still benefit from dominating at the U17 level. I think his skill level is on par and maybe slightly ahead of the best 07s.

When it comes to Kretzschmar I am less convinced. I think he can handle playing U20 hockey, because he has the size and strength for it, but I don't see him anywhere near the same level as Penkin or even Schwarz overall. But if he does well this season with the U17 team, I could see him play a bit at the U20 level later in the season.

At the moment I have a lot going on in my life, which leaves very little time for me to spend on my hobby of following our prospects and posting here. But I am optimistic that I will be able to update my rankings in this thread this coming weekend. At the very least I will have some preliminary rankings done by then, that I may have do amend a little bit later on.

Short preview for the 2027 ranking:
Currently I have Penkin at the top (not surprisingly) followed by three players in Jonas Schwarz, Jaden Switzer and Jannes Schreiber (the initials JS are really stong in this group lol) that I also really like. I can't seen any of them catching up to Penkin any time soon, though.
After that I have 2 groups of 6 that are separated by very little and anybody within those groups could break out and move up the ranking fast.
I am actually really starting to like the depths of the 2009 group. There is a chance they might end up rivalling the 07s, which would be great for German hockey. At the same time I liked the 07s more than I am liking the 09s now, but they have started to catch up a bit. We'll see if that trend continues.

Still, for anybod who thinks "hey, this sounds great", things may look very different a year from now.