Famous but still unknown: Ex-NHL star Kühnhackl is part of the World Cup for the first time

Tom Kühnhackl will only play for the national team for the second time at the 2021 Ice Hockey World Cup.

The two-time Stanley Cup champ has only played five international matches.

Nuremberg / Munich - Tom Kühnhackl has won the Stanley Cup twice, making him very high in German ice hockey history, and the 29-year-old is famous for his last name anyway.

But how many international matches does the son of the German 20th century player Erich Kühnhackl have in his vita?

It's only five.

That is a disproportion.

Kühnhackl junior and the German national team, to whose line-up for the Ice Hockey World Cup 2021 (from May 21st) he is part - they have come together for the time being. That was in autumn 2016. The players from the National Hockey League were also available for qualifying for the 2018 Olympic Games. This extraordinarily well-known team was also available to Kühnhackl, who played two preparatory and three qualifying games in Riga. In the decisive against Latvia he scored the winning goal. He therefore speaks of great memories of Riga - “and of what happened afterwards”. Unfortunately without him and the NHL faction. Because the North American pros were not given clearance for Pyeongchang, where the national team consisting of DEL cracks won Olympic silver.

Tom Kühnhackl at the Ice Hockey World Cup 2021: His best years were 2016 and 2017

2016 - fantastic year: Tom Kühnhackl shot the Germans towards Olympic luck after winning the Stanley Cup with the Pittsburgh Penguins.

In 2017 he was there again, second cup win.

In 2018 (Pittsburgh) and 2019 (New York Islanders) he was back in the playoffs, and they overlap with the World Cup, which he has therefore never been to: "It's always difficult over there to get it going." 2010 was there at 18, Tom Kühnhackl had decided to play ice hockey in America.

The interest in Germany, which he had fueled in 2009 as a promotional license player with the Augsburger Panthers with four DEL appearances, subsided.

For years Kühnhackl was not noticed.

His way was long and arduous.

The name known in Germany did not give him any advantage in the USA.

He also had to take on a different role when he knew it from the German U-national teams and the Landshut school and youth teams.

In the AHL and especially the NHL, the attacking striker became the role player.

Tom Kühnhackl was mostly used in the ranks that are supposed to ensure that the opponent's top strikers do not cause any harm.

He has not yet figured out with national coach Toni Söderholm whether he will be able to act offensively in the national team.

He says, “I'm also happy to be on a shutdown row.

We have a lot of offensively talented players. ”He only knows many of them by name, he has mostly only followed what the German Ice Hockey Federation shared in terms of social media content.

Tom Kühnhackl back in Germany soon? There are good reasons for that

The fact that it has now become tangible for the German national team also has to do with Tom Kühnhackl's changed sporting situation. With the New York Islanders he was found to be no longer good enough for the NHL, which helped that a shoulder injury broke out again. Dennis Seidenberg, another German Stanley Cup winner, who works in the organization of the Islanders (and also played in the Olympic qualification in 2016) has made him fit. Tom Kühnhackl got at least one contract for the American Hockey League, with the Bridgeport Sound Tigers. “There were only 24 games, we each played twelve times against the same team, and there were no playoffs either. But I was happy to be back on the ice. ”In the end it went quite well for him, but this shortened season did not fully utilize him.He still has to do something. Also to advertise yourself.

Another contract coming in the NHL? Or does he, like Korbinian Holzer (33), who was tired of having to "maneuver from one-year to one-year contract" and therefore accepted the safe offer from Adler Mannheim, to return to Germany? There are reasons for this, too, and they are not just sporty in nature. Father Erich celebrated a sad 70th birthday last year because his wife had died shortly before. "I had to fly home because something had happened there," is how Tom describes the mother's death. The relationship with the parents was always close. Father and mother were there when Tom celebrated his great success in the NHL.

In the DEL he only has the twelve-year-old couple of games with Augsburg. The EHC Munich was then interested in him. In 2014, when it was thought he would not be able to realize his NHL dream. But he persevered. Things are different now. “I don't think too far ahead,” says Kühnhackl. At the World Cup, he stands in the shop window. He will increase his international account enormously.