My mistake, I thought Reinbacher was German but he is Austrian. Disregard.
God, I wish he was. Love Reinbacher and hope he does well for whichever team ends up drafting him, and for Austrian hockey.
We have a few good defensemen and goalies coming, but not quite NHL level, so the defense in particular will likely remain suspect.
Gawanke should be good and solid for a while, Szuber (drafted as an overager by Arizona) is looking good, Hüttl has developed very well, so we should be alright when it comes to the World Championships.
But for a best-on-best tournament we really have to hope that a couple of the upcoming prospects really pan out. There are a few candidates that show promise, but they are only now entering the phase of their development that can give us a clearer view of what we might have in them. My biggest hope currently is
Carlos Händel (2025 draft).
I wonder if we will ever have stretch of years with defensemen like Seidenberg, Ehrhoff, Schubert, Sulzer, Dietrich (RIP) and Holzer of NHL-level or near NHL-level calibre again.
It is really nice that Seider, Stützle, Peterka, Reichel and maybe Lutz would all play most of their careers together, but I hope we can continue to add to that group soon. The next couple of draft are not looking so hot, but 2025 could be a good one, but it is still a long way away.