EDMONTON — Somewhere between Anze Kopitar and Connor McDavid lies Leon Draisaitl.
The pressure to bring a gold medal home from Milan? That lies unarguably with McDavid.
The expectation to raise his country’s international profile in the hockey world? Well, Kopitar would plead “no contest.”
Slovenia squeaks into the men’s world championships off and on, but it has never produced a roster that Kopitar — in all his greatness — could reasonably lead anywhere.
Then there is Germany at these Olympic Games, newly captained by The Deutschland Dangler himself, the son of German hockey royalty, Leon Draisaitl.
A suddenly emerging hockey nation, even teammate Nico Sturm fears that the relatively uneducated (in hockey) German sports fan may be expecting more than their team can deliver.
“There has been a lot of talk about, ‘This is the best team that we’ve ever sent to a tournament!’ But,” Sturm says, pausing to make sure everyone hears this next part: “Obviously all the other countries also sent their best team.
“Sometimes, people who don’t follow hockey as much don’t always grasp how much of an impact having NHL players at the Games has.”
The best German team ever? The best German player ever?
What does that even mean?
Well, let’s start with the fact the “Träger der Adler” — the Bearers of the Eagle — have as their leader not only the best they’ve ever produced, but a top-five player in the world.
We would argue that Germany’s captain is a superior player today than any captain of any Olympic hockey team in 2026. Yes, better — at this moment in time — even than the legend that is Sidney Crosby.
When has Germany been able to say that?
Yet, the same way that many Canadian sports fans would not be able to identify soccer superstar Alphonso Davies if they saw him in street clothes, Sturm isn’t sure if the average German truly knows what they have in the Cologne born-and-raised Draisaitl.
“If you’d ask random people on the streets, not necessarily sports fans, and you showed them a picture of Leon… I don’t know,” Sturm admits. “Soccer is still so predominant. It overshines everything.
“While Leon has been the face of our hockey federation for a long time, hockey is still a niche sport in Germany. And I don’t expect that to change.”
On our side of the Atlantische Ozean, Draisaitl has amassed 1,036 points in 845 NHL games.
The next best all-time NHL German scorer is Marco Sturm. He had 487 points in 938 games.
As such, on Monday, the Germans named Draisaitl as captain, succeeding 39-year-old Moritz Müller, who has played 22 seasons with the Cologne Sharks, three Olympic Games for Germany and has captained his country internationally since 2018.
German hockey has passed the torch to Draisaitl, officially. He will be the unchallenged face of Germany ice hockey for the foreseeable future.
“I don’t know if I view it as that,” Draisaitl said, downplaying the ‘face of the game’ angle. “I see it as just wanting to go there, be around some of my best friends and show the hockey world how good we can play hockey as a team.
“We know we’re going to be an underdog in the majority of the games that we play. But we’ve got some great players, and German hockey has come a long, long ways.”
Far enough, we’d say, that come the quarter-final round Draisaitl can stand at centre ice for an opening face off against Canada, look McDavid in the eye, and….
Well, what would that be like?
“Scary,” Draisaitl said, breaking into a smile. “For him.”
A game against his bestie would mark unprecedented opportunity for Team Germany. Opportunity to show where the new Eaglemen stand in hockey’s new world order. And, of course, opportunity to be shown that it’s nowhere close to the guys wearing the red Maple Leaf.
“(A game versus Canada) would be really special, of course,” Draisaitl said. “It all might feel a little weird at first. But when the puck drops, (McDavid) is going to look to give his team the best chance to win, and I’m going to do the same for our country. That would obviously be a unique situation, certainly, and an odd feeling, but…. we’ll see where it goes.”
While McDavid will play alongside childhood teammates like Sam Bennett and Sam Reinhart for the second time in a calendar year, this is a rare opportunity for Draisaitl, who doesn’t find opportunity to play in any world championships with his Oilers an annual playoff team.
When they were kids playing U-16 hockey in Mannheim, Dominik Kahun and Draisaitl led the league with 126 and 103 points respectively.
Mannheim played just 27 games.
“If you get six points every night, it’s pretty fun. But let’s not read too much into that,” Draisaitl admitted. “My childhood best friend is on the (German) team, Freddie Tiffels. Our moms went to school together. I’ve known him since I was, like, minutes old.
“It’s been a long time since I’ve been able to represent my country and be around those guys. That’s partly what I’m most excited about, just being around my friends and getting to experience this with them.”
Sturm, who is the same age (30) as Draisaitl, recalled playing Mannheim.
“It was usually him, Freddie Tiffels and Dominik Kahun. We’d get torched. Oh my God, it would just be double digit games all the time. It was horrible.”
Somewhere between the success that Mannheim team had and getting torched is likely where Team Germany will end up in Milan.
But a new attitude is already being forged within German hockey. A new belief that — if they can have the best player on the ice for the majority of their games (Germany is in a pool with the U.S., Denmark and Latvia) — then perhaps the rest of the team can elevate accordingly.
Maybe German hockey can crack the top tier with the Swedes, Finns, Canadians, Americans, Czechs and Slovaks, in a true best-on-best like these Milan Olympics.
You hear it in the voice of the new Oiler Josh Samanski, a recent arrival to pro hockey who would not declare a quarter-final appearance as the ultimate success for the Germans.
“I don’t know if I would say that defines success,” Samanski said. “You go there to win games. So you want to make the quarters. And when you make the quarters, you’re hungry. You want to make the semis. You’re hungry.
“Then when you make the semis, you want to make the finals.”
They finally have someone to follow, these Germans. Sometimes, that’s half the battle.
