Experienced Moritz Müller sees the national ice hockey team having reached a new level before the Olympic Games in Milan. “The German team has probably never had so much quality,” said the 39-year-old in the “Sport1” interview. There are “now many German players with key roles in the NHL – things used to be different.”
But this also applies to other nations in the fight for medals at these Winter Games, added the 2018 silver medalist. “Realistically speaking, we are not among the favorites. Canada, the USA, Finland or Sweden almost exclusively have NHL squads and have the stronger teams in terms of names,” explained Müller. Nevertheless, he is “convinced that we don’t have to hide.”
From Müller’s point of view, the upcoming tournament is also “special, also because there is hardly any preparation time.” In order to be successful, it will be important to “get together quickly and internalize the system. Then everything is possible for us again.”
A special role will be played by NHL superstar Leon Draisaitl from the Edmonton Oilers, who still receives too little recognition in football-crazy Germany, as the captain of the Kölner Haie says: “It’s quite a phenomenon. When you walk through Cologne with Leon, many people don’t even recognize him. Yet he is one of the greatest German athletes of our time, perhaps even the greatest.”
