If there’s one German player in the National Hockey League who is far from shy about expressing pride in his origins, it’s Ottawa Senators forward Tim Stützle.
Attentive to the progress of the World Junior Hockey Championship, the 21-year-old athlete fully enjoyed his country’s 4-3 triumph against the Finns on Wednesday morning. This victory for the German team is the first in its history at the expense of its rivals of the day. Indeed, she had escaped her 25 previous confrontations against the blue and white team in this competition.
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Having participated in the tournament in 2020 and 2021, Stützle obviously hopes to see his compatriots achieve other feats of this kind.
“They fought well and it was a good match on their part,” he said in an interview with the TSN network. Three years ago when I was there we only had about 10 guys playing against them [durant la pandémie] and we lost 5 to 3. Just like at the time, Finland was scary, but Germany played better.”
Moreover, he and his Senators teammates could draw inspiration from this unexpected success of the Germans to relaunch their season. Before facing the Maple Leafs in Toronto in the evening, they were in last place in the Atlantic Division.
“I hope it will show up this evening,” admitted head coach Jacques Martin with a smile, aware that the World Juniors are assiduously followed by several of his players.
“Germany is starting to be a team that performs well, whether at the World Juniors or the Men’s World Hockey Championship,” he added.
The Senators-Leafs game will be broadcast on TVA Sports.