WC: Austria Team 2022

[SoundAndFury]

Do you guys think , Kasper could be top center for you ?

Well it's between him and Baumgartner, no other real options unless Komarek joins.

 

[Eye of Ra]

Lebler have impressed me.

No word on Komarek?

 

[GuiLef14]

Komarek won't come. But he said yesterday that his national team carrer isn't over yet and he would accept an invitation the next time.

I'm really happy the way the team has played the first two games. The guys challenged the favorites and kept up with the pace. So the long training camp before the tournament pays off.

But unfortunately Baumgartner injured his knee, when Seth Jones pushed him into the boards. So the tournament is over for him. Another big blow for us. Now both NL forwards (Zwerger and Baumgartner) are missing. So Schwinger will draw into the lineup. I'd play with the following bottom 6 now:

Ganahl - Wukovits - Huber
Schwinger - Achermann - Feldner

 

[Levshunov]

Ganahl - Wukovits - Huber
Schwinger - Achermann - Feldner

It would be interesting to hear your opinion about the optimal composition of the Austrian national team, if everyone is healthy and the players who refused would return, age still allows them to perform at the national team level.

 

[AKQJ]

Bull naed on official list, like Rubins in Team Latvia, both still miss todays game...

 

[Eye of Ra]

How is Haudum not producing more points in EBEL? He is very skilled.

 

[Levshunov]

A very unyielding team was brought to the tournament, it would be interesting to see if all the strongest came

 

[SoundAndFury]

I prefer a winning team over "strongest".

 

[GuiLef14]

It would be interesting to hear your opinion about the optimal composition of the Austrian national team, if everyone is healthy and the players who refused would return, age still allows them to perform at the national team level.

First of all: HELL YEAH BOYS!!
What an unbeliveable tournament so far. I've never seen an Austrian team with that much spirit, passion and also discipline on the ice. Everyone works for each other and plays the game he's supposed to play. Bader really does a great job and I also think that Arno del Curto is a huge part of the success of this team. He knows exactly how to treat the guys, so that they tap their full potential (and maybe even a little bit more).
It would be amazing if we could win against Norway today and basically secure our spot for next year after just 4 games.

And now, to come back to your question. My perfect line-up, based on skill level and also having players for certain roles, would be:

Starkbaum/Kickert (If Starkbaum retires Wraneschitz or Schmidt will fill that hole)

Heinrich - Nickl
Unterweger - Maier
Payr - St. Ulmer
B. Wolf - Zündel

Kasper - Rossi - Komarek
M. Raffl - Baumgartner - Lebler
Zwerger - Haudum - Schneider
T. Raffl - Nissner - P. Huber

I think Paul Huber is really the only one in this hypothetical "best of the best" line-up, you can discuss about and put in Wukovits instead. But he has really impressed me so far, is still just 21 years old and above all has one attribute, that Austrian players traditionally lack: Size.

 

[SoundAndFury]

Looks like it's time to start working on acquiring the goalie

Seriously, as long as goaltending holds up it's hard to see this team leaving elite. Definitely not until Russia comes back.

 

[Eye of Ra]

Looks like it's time to start working on acquiring the goalie

Seriously, as long as goaltending holds up it's hard to see this team leaving elite. Definitely not until Russia comes back.

Thats too bad. Starkbaum was good once. As was reinhard Divis

 

[Eye of Ra]

First of all: HELL YEAH BOYS!!
What an unbeliveable tournament so far. I've never seen an Austrian team with that much spirit, passion and also discipline on the ice. Everyone works for each other and plays the game he's supposed to play. Bader really does a great job and I also think that Arno del Curto is a huge part of the success of this team. He knows exactly how to treat the guys, so that they tap their full potential (and maybe even a little bit more).
It would be amazing if we could win against Norway today and basically secure our spot for next year after just 4 games.

And now, to come back to your question. My perfect line-up, based on skill level and also having players for certain roles, would be:

Starkbaum/Kickert (If Starkbaum retires Wraneschitz or Schmidt will fill that hole)

Heinrich - Nickl
Unterweger - Maier
Payr - St. Ulmer
B. Wolf - Zündel

Kasper - Rossi - Komarek
M. Raffl - Baumgartner - Lebler
Zwerger - Haudum - Schneider
T. Raffl - Nissner - P. Huber

I think Paul Huber is really the only one in this hypothetical "best of the best" line-up, you can discuss about and put in Wukovits instead. But he has really impressed me so far, is still just 21 years old and above all has one attribute, that Austrian players traditionally lack: Size.

I would add Hofer and Herburger. 2 good players in NLA. Remove 2 of T.Raffl/Nissner/Huber.

 

[SoundAndFury]

Starkbaum is alright but how badly he outplayed Kickert in Vienna this season even at this age is a worrying sign. Wranrschitz also looks more like a career ICEHL goalie in the making. Schmidt is pretty much irrelevant to the discussion. All in all, there is going to be some kind of dropoff in the post-Starkbaum ears.

Which is kinda unfortunate since circa 2014 Olympics goaltending seemed to be Austria's biggest strength.

 

[HungryFrank]

I'd wait for the game against GB before saying the tournament was a success... we were all certain in a win against Italy few years ago and we know how it played out.

 

[kabidjan18]

It's a really awkward question to answer "what is the optimal lineup." Because right now we clearly don't have the optimal lineup. The earliest tournament where it will be possible to have the optimal lineup is worlds next year. And there are so many players we hope will take a step forward next year, and also players who might regress next year.

I'm really tired of seeing the old guard. I just am. It's one thing if like Philipp Wimmer for example had a horrible game. Got walked for goals 2 times and took a bad penalty. Like that sucks but it's growing pains. You expect that a young player will learn from that experience and perhaps play better next time. Thomas Raffl was terrible all game, but none worse than in the two moments, one with the errant pass leading to a goal and the other when he took the penalty. Yes, Zundel got deked, but if you look at the position of the puck with regards to the net, the forward is already in tight and to the left, only a sharp angle shot is available, he just needs to keep him to the outside. But he makes the veteran move of swinging his stick like he is wielding Excalibur, and that penalty leads to Wimmer getting walked. Or Heinrich on the first goal against, a skater with a long stick could poke check that puck but all he can do is kinda reach up and hug the guy. Then on the EN goal same deal, a longer skater perhaps gets to the spot first and deflects that puck in behind the next, or maybe he shouldn't pinch up, but he delays and then pinches when it's too late for someone with his reach to get to the puck. And I understand some people will think "oh but he's scoring points so it's ok." It's not ok. Those mistakes cost us dearly.

And they're not new. Thomas Raffl as 0 points in his last 13 games in the WC or OGQ and is -15. The only reason Dominique Heinrich has looked half decent at ES in this tournament is because he's anchored to Kilian Zundel. In the last two WCs he was -15 in 11 games. And they're not going to get better. Unlike if Wimmer makes a mistake or Maier makes a mistake, these guys are as good as they're going to get. At the very least, Lebler lacks footspeed but he tries his very best to make up for it by working hard and being physical. Ganahl lacks playmaking ability but he's a persistent hard-working forechecker and good defensively. If I want to see any vets, it's these guys, because they work hard and set a good example, and even are somewhat effective. But they have not been great either, Lebler is a team leading -5. In particular, we can't get any offense going because Lebler is too slow to keep up with Kasper and Haudum, and Raffl is too slow to keep up with Nissner and Schneider.

I know that these guys are like legends in Austrian hockey but it's time for change. I've already seen the movie where these guys face Norway and Latvia. I know how it ends. They lose. And even if, even if they win one time. So what? We need to be building towards the future. David Maier, Thimo Nickl, Luis Lindner, they have the potential to be just as good if not even better offensively than Dominique Heinrich, while also being able to play defense. And Wolf and Zundel are locking it down in our end. That's exciting. I'd rather nurture that than watch the old guard fall short the same way it did every other year. And there's nothing wrong with having some veterans around to mentor the youth, but they're drawing far too much ice time and far too important assignments.

For this tournament, I don't know how you change. Maybe you move up Schneider to be with Haudum and Kasper, the only danger is that you then really only have one scoring line. But like, for me I don't care so much about the results. We weren't supposed to be in this tournament anyways. If we lose it's fine, but I want to see the plan for Austrian hockey moving forward.

 

[kabidjan18]

THIS TEAM IS DIFFERENT​

THIS TEAM IS DIFFERENT

Austrian fans are tired. They’ve heard it before. “Look at this energetic youngster, he is misused by his club. He should be given more playing time like he gets on the national team.&#…

authockeytxreports.wordpress.com

 

[kabidjan18]

laola1.at/de/red/wintersport/eishockey/weltmeisterschaft/eishockey-wm--die-eckpfeiler-beim-klassenerhalt-oesterreichs/
"Auch wenn gerne völlig unreflektiert und uninformiert nach jungen Spielern geschrien wird - am Turnaround zum Turnierende waren jedenfalls drei Routiniers wesentlich beteiligt.

Dominique Heinrich – auch wenn er mit seiner geringen Reichweite international oft an seine Grenzen stößt, ist er doch der einzige ÖEHV-Defender, der in den letzten Turnieren überhaupt traf. Verteidiger-Tore können in engen Partien oft Dosenöffner sein, Heinrich steuerte diese regelmäßig bei und sein 2:3 ließ die Briten endgültig erlahmen. Seine Performance ließ eine durchwachsene Saison in Salzburg schnell vergessen, seine Powerplay-Expertise und Skating-Fähigkeiten ist im Team weiter unabkömmlich."

He was directly and almost solely responsible for giving up goals 1 and 3. A firefighter is not he who sets fires that only he can put out.

One Austrian fan opined that he was concerned that some veterans including the aforementioned would be retiring. How would we replace him? We wouldn't be down 3-1 in the third period because of 2 bad goals, that's how...

 

[HungryFrank]

laola1.at/de/red/wintersport/eishockey/weltmeisterschaft/eishockey-wm--die-eckpfeiler-beim-klassenerhalt-oesterreichs/
"Auch wenn gerne völlig unreflektiert und uninformiert nach jungen Spielern geschrien wird - am Turnaround zum Turnierende waren jedenfalls drei Routiniers wesentlich beteiligt.

Dominique Heinrich – auch wenn er mit seiner geringen Reichweite international oft an seine Grenzen stößt, ist er doch der einzige ÖEHV-Defender, der in den letzten Turnieren überhaupt traf. Verteidiger-Tore können in engen Partien oft Dosenöffner sein, Heinrich steuerte diese regelmäßig bei und sein 2:3 ließ die Briten endgültig erlahmen. Seine Performance ließ eine durchwachsene Saison in Salzburg schnell vergessen, seine Powerplay-Expertise und Skating-Fähigkeiten ist im Team weiter unabkömmlich."

He was directly and almost solely responsible for giving up goals 1 and 3. A firefighter is not he who sets fires that only he can put out.

One Austrian fan opined that he was concerned that some veterans including the aforementioned would be retiring. How would we replace him? We wouldn't be down 3-1 in the third period because of 2 bad goals, that's how...

He's the only defender that had more than 1 point on the tournament. I get the criticism of his play, but it's not his fault coach has him there that much. I've always said he's Austrian Yandle.

I admire your optimism, but I doubt that youngsters wouldn't make more mistakes with more ice time and if you got completely rod of Heinrich, there is no-one with any offensive whatsoever potential to replace him (among people on that roster).

Except Nickl and even there I'm starting to have doubts, I'm not convinced that any player will ever be more than lifelong ICEHLer or 7th D in NL if they're luck enough to have the licence. So always "damaged goods"

 

[SoundAndFury]

Except Nickl and even there I'm starting to have doubts, I'm not convinced that any player will ever be more than lifelong ICEHLer or 7th D in NL if they're luck enough to have the licence. So always "damaged goods"

This seems very pessimistic. I think Zundel can play 2nd pair as early as next season, he just needs to add some weight over the summer. After all, he was signed as [eventual] Fora's replacement or at least such is the hope there.

 

[kabidjan18]

He's the only defender that had more than 1 point on the tournament. I get the criticism of his play, but it's not his fault coach has him there that much. I've always said he's Austrian Yandle.

I admire your optimism, but I doubt that youngsters wouldn't make more mistakes with more ice time and if you got completely rod of Heinrich, there is no-one with any offensive whatsoever potential to replace him (among people on that roster).

Except Nickl and even there I'm starting to have doubts, I'm not convinced that any player will ever be more than lifelong ICEHLer or 7th D in NL if they're luck enough to have the licence. So always "damaged goods"

Sure, I think these are fair criticisms! I'll go into why I disagree.

We don't need to wonder what mistakes they would make with more ice time, they actually played more ice time than him and didn't make the same mistakes. Because Heinrich sat out a game if you recall, Zundel and Maier had more ice time on the tournament than he did. Wolf had less than 6 minutes less. And that's not factoring out PP time, if you remove PP time then they all had much more ice time than him. They did not make nearly as many mistakes.

For me personally, the whole point of this tournament is that as team Austria, there's always this negative mindset or expectation like "of course every team is supposed to score 6 goals on us. That's normal. It's unavoidable. It will happen to any defenseman you put out there." It's not normal. It's not unavoidable. And now we see clearly that it doesn't happen when you put defensively sound defensemen out there. That's not supposed to be the way it is. And when you can keep games within scoring range, you can win them. And we found, for the first time, defensemen who can keep games close. People thought this team would get beat up badly because we were missing such and such forwards, but this tournament showed instead the value of defense.

In Heinrich's WC/OGQ career, he scored 8 points in 24 games and still ended up -23. Basically -1 goal per game, and in the WCs he was -20 in 20 games so exactly -1 per game. That's bad even by Austrian standards. That's even worse than other defensemen like Martin Schumnig, Alexander Pallestrang, Patrick Peter, Clemens Unterweger, Steven Strong. But I think, if this last WC showed anything is that we don't have to settle for these terrible defensive performances. Teams that accept those terrible defensive performances get sent back down to D1, and that has been our reality for the last 7 years or so.

If the other defensemen were getting his PP time, they would score more. Sure, they would not score 7 points. But that leads into my main point, which is more my personal philosophy. I'm old school in that I believe the #1 job of a defenseman is to defend. Austrian fans understandably were asking "what will we do next time if Heinrich retires and we're down 3-1 against GB?" The answer is pretty obviously...we wouldn't be down 3-1 against GB. Great Britain was the lowest scoring team in the tournament, scored one goal per game pace before our game, there's no reason to give up 3 goals against them. Heinrich created a problem so huge that only Heinrich could fix it. But the better idea is to not get into that problem in the first place.

And you're 100 percent right, it's hard to blame Heinrich when it's the coach who puts him on the PK. There is a place for Heinrich, next to a defenseman who can babysit him. Someone who can let him play like a 4th forward. But then, one must be clear, the magic is not coming from Heinrich. The magic is coming from the person who is allowing him to play this 4th forward role. Because we have seen Heinrich many times, at 3 WCs and 2 Olympic Qualifiers. He was never capable of doing what he did this tournament until he had the partners he had this tournament.

I understand the pessimism. That's why I wrote THIS TEAM IS DIFFERENT. People are asking "what if it's a fluke?" I don't think you fluke your way to 110+ minutes of solid defense against teams comprised of some of the best players in the world. If you could fluke excellent defense, then I wish we could have one it in the past 8 years, especially around Olympic Qualifying times, it would have saved me much heartbreak. But even so, there are other really promising system defensemen. Thimo Nickl, Julian Payr (if healthy), Luis Lindner, and down the line there's Sablattnig, Horl, Reinbacher. Maybe some of them do end up lifelong ICEHLers. Most likely at least some of the names I mentioned will. But that's what Matthias Trattnig and Gerhard Unterluggauer were, even Andre Lakos traveled more, but still played more in the EBEL than every other league combined. If they play in the ICEHL but they can keep the puck out of the net against NHL/KHL/SHL players, I'm ok with that.

 

[HungryFrank]

Would you then leave Heinrich out? If yes, how would you compensate his offensive ability?

About Zündel being top 4 in Ambrí... I wasn't able to find any official claims on that topic.

 

[SoundAndFury]

About Zündel being top 4 in Ambrí... I wasn't able to find any official claims on that topic.

Well I don't think you are going to find some grand statements about most low-key defensive signings, it's not like Zundel is expected to single-handedly win championships for them. But as it currently stands:

1) Ambri's defense situation is Fora and Hietanen out, Virtanen and Zundel in
2) Salzburg isn't an organization you are going to leave for a 7th D slot, not after the season they had
3) Zundel signed by European standards long-term, 2+1 contract. Once again nobody does that unless relatively significant financial commitment is coming from the team signing them

I think that overall forms a pretty good view of the situation.

 

[kabidjan18]

Would you then leave Heinrich out? If yes, how would you compensate his offensive ability?

About Zündel being top 4 in Ambrí... I wasn't able to find any official claims on that topic.

Well, in the IIHF you can bring like 8, 9 defensemen so no, I'd bring him and never play him unless it was a PP situation like the Blues did with Perunovich. In reality, Heinrich leaves on his own terms if he ever chooses to do so. And if he is present he probably chooses his playing time.

Maier ran a PP unit in the first two games, I was satisfied with what I saw. Alternatively, Nickl or Lindner could. Defensemen can naturally generate a lot of offense just by keeping the points, so keeping it in the zone, putting it back behind the net, putting it on net, etc. It's also easiest to score when even or ahead. I think the wrong message to take away from this World's is that Heinrich is the offense. People thought going into the tournament that the team would struggle to score because they missed some forwards, but they didn't. Heinrich too is not the offense, nor is he requisite for offensive production. He had a hand in less than half of the goals scored. If games were tighter, the team could have easily scored more than it did. People gravitate towards individual offensive efforts, but there are a lot of good forwards on the team who will score if you give them possession in the offensive zone and keep the puck in at the points.

I think Zundel will be top 4, perhaps not immediately but by the end of the season. It was an open secret among people who watched them play that he was better than Pallestrang a long time ago. Now we have to pretend to be surprised to find it out at the WC of course.

I am reminded of @SoundAndFury and his criticism of the Eastern European teams because their defensemen are too defensive. He is not wrong. But they have never lacked for goals when playing against us. Because offense is about system and structure. If you asked anyone, this year's WC team had the worst forwards of any WC since Sochi. And yet, it actually scored more than any other team since Sochi. If you do the fundamentals of hockey, the goals will come.

 

[Eye of Ra]

Where did Stefan Ulmer go?