Great to stay up. Both and exciting and a momentous occasion, and well-deserved.
However, we need to keep looking ahead. As is customary, once the win came to a close you had your people say "All Hail God King Bader", which is silly in my opinion. Some suddenly forgot that for the most of the rest of the tournament we were defensively and offensively inept.
This tournament really demonstrated how much more work remains to be done. Start with the top line. Schneider-Hundertpfund-Ganahl. This line didn't really get going much throughout the tournament and, no shock, because it's not really a first line. Peter Schneider is an elite ECHL player. Hundertpfund is a 3rd line center in our league. Manuel Ganahl's clip in our league was something like 2 points in 3 games. Not elite guys. Our 1D was Clemens Unterweger. Other teams clearly have top lines that are significantly beyond his ability to defend. Our second line had Hofer-Komarek-Raffl or Lebler-Raffl-Hofer. Komarek really struggled throughout the tournament except in the last two periods Belarus game and the first two periods of the Slovakia game. He's a solid guy but probably not someone to build a top 6 line around. Lebler has shown more or less that he's the cliche "big fish in a small pond." Hofer was truly atrocious throughout the tournament, he legitimately had less utility than Spannring and Obrist. I feel sorry for Ambri Piotta. They've acquired a player with speed, energy, and apparently not much else. Zwerger-Rauchenwald-Haudum. This line looked good and it was probably the best line throughout the entire tournament. Haudum and Rauchenwald could get heavier. Haudum struggled to finish chances. Zwerger was incredibl...y under-utilized, he was elite with the time he had. Rauchenwald was pretty good, but could be smarter with his chances. Of course, if they're young you must sit them... The fourth line was fine. With luck we will not need them anymore.
Defensively, Viveiros was pretty good throughout. Ulmer was good against Belarus. Schumnig was good against France. The only real pieces I would want to keep moving foward are Viveiros and Ulmer.
Next year we could see the debut of some talented athletes, but not really a 1C or 1D like we need. Bernd Wolf, Mario Huber, perhaps Henrik Neubauer. Watch out for some of the youth though, Kele Steffler, Julian Payr, David Maier, Niklas Wurschl defensive help may be coming.
However, we need to keep looking ahead. As is customary, once the win came to a close you had your people say "All Hail God King Bader", which is silly in my opinion. Some suddenly forgot that for the most of the rest of the tournament we were defensively and offensively inept.
This tournament really demonstrated how much more work remains to be done. Start with the top line. Schneider-Hundertpfund-Ganahl. This line didn't really get going much throughout the tournament and, no shock, because it's not really a first line. Peter Schneider is an elite ECHL player. Hundertpfund is a 3rd line center in our league. Manuel Ganahl's clip in our league was something like 2 points in 3 games. Not elite guys. Our 1D was Clemens Unterweger. Other teams clearly have top lines that are significantly beyond his ability to defend. Our second line had Hofer-Komarek-Raffl or Lebler-Raffl-Hofer. Komarek really struggled throughout the tournament except in the last two periods Belarus game and the first two periods of the Slovakia game. He's a solid guy but probably not someone to build a top 6 line around. Lebler has shown more or less that he's the cliche "big fish in a small pond." Hofer was truly atrocious throughout the tournament, he legitimately had less utility than Spannring and Obrist. I feel sorry for Ambri Piotta. They've acquired a player with speed, energy, and apparently not much else. Zwerger-Rauchenwald-Haudum. This line looked good and it was probably the best line throughout the entire tournament. Haudum and Rauchenwald could get heavier. Haudum struggled to finish chances. Zwerger was incredibl...y under-utilized, he was elite with the time he had. Rauchenwald was pretty good, but could be smarter with his chances. Of course, if they're young you must sit them... The fourth line was fine. With luck we will not need them anymore.
Defensively, Viveiros was pretty good throughout. Ulmer was good against Belarus. Schumnig was good against France. The only real pieces I would want to keep moving foward are Viveiros and Ulmer.
Next year we could see the debut of some talented athletes, but not really a 1C or 1D like we need. Bernd Wolf, Mario Huber, perhaps Henrik Neubauer. Watch out for some of the youth though, Kele Steffler, Julian Payr, David Maier, Niklas Wurschl defensive help may be coming.
