Nationalteams Nachwuchs

First roster for the U20 team is out, not real surprises. Christof Kromp and Yannic Pilloni were not present, I'm not sure if due to injury or otherwise, definitely not for lack of skill. The best news is related to Kele Steffler. He has put on 8 kg (17.5 pounds) since last season bringing him from 154 pounds to 172 pounds. The extra strength should help immensely and immediately. I really like this team. The top 5 forwards and 3 defenders are as good as any in the division, if not best in division. The top 8 forwards and 5 defenders are adequate. Depth and Goaltending will be the issue this team faces on the road to promotion this season.
http://www.eishockey.at/de/red/news/na…view-u20-bader/
Top 5 Forwards: Haudum, Kromp, Baltram, Winkler, Maxa
Top 3 Defenders: B.Wolf, Steffler, Nussbaumer

First roster for the U18s is out as well. First off I must say I'm very pleased with the promotion of Andreas Brucker to the U18 head coaching position. He is a very talented coach and I've felt he was one of the fastest rising Austrian coaches for a while now. Also, Dieter Werfring had to go, which was something I don't think Bernd Freimuller quite agreed on but this Werfring's teams were tactically incompetent, his roster selections would dubious at best, his line pairings were never adjusted according to matchups or chemistry, and his line changes were frenetic more often than not, culminating in consistent failure to allow players to produce to their best potential, even against D1B competition.

I'm curious as to what is going on with Benjamin Lanzinger. Is he still injured? Has he fallen out of favor with the coaching staff? I'm very high on him, and I want to be able to get more viewings of him that are not from long ago. Otherwise I am very pleased with the selection of players for this upcoming camp. On defense there are the common sense selections, Wurschl, Vonbun, and Schreier, and then some common sense additions in Payr and Maier. There's a little bit of a suprirse with Alexander Frandl, I'll be curious to see him in action, but the biggest and best surprise is seeing Matteo Peskoller on the list. He's a big strong kid, built like an American football player who played good time with the EBYSL team last year but needs to cut down on silly mistakes. A surprise omission is Peter Pauli Sivec, but I also felt that he was not good enough for the selection. I honestly had no idea what they originally saw in him, the one thing he did with great consistency was turning the puck over. On offense Artner, Maxa, Maurer, Bretschneider, and Zitz are the common sense selections, and Frowis, Baumgartner, Huber, and Rossi (despite being 14) are common sense additions. Watch out for Frowis especially, he's really flown under the radar but it would not surprise me if he played well enough to earn a spot at the U20 championship in December. Surprised and excited to see Rebernig after being left off the 00' team this past summer but he is absolutely deserving of the call, being probably the most physically gifted player on the team. Julian Pusnik is out, which would be a surprise but I am fairly certain he will be back by the time the tournament comes around.
http://www.eishockey.at/de/red/news/na…ew-u18-brucker/

Recap of the scrimmage/week in Kapfenberg, some crazy thoughts and predictions.
https://authockeytxreports.wordpress.com/2016/08/03/kap…-and-scrimmage/

Keeping in mind that Austria won the entire Super Challenge tournament last year...

Lost 4-2 to Farjestad BK. Dominic Divis had a 82% save rate. When the actual championship comes some serious consideration needs to be given to Max Haselbacher. Nothing should be more important than producing the best product on the ice. I hated the lines. The players were lined according by club as opposed to by skill. This is a national team friendly match though, the purpose of this friendly or set of friendlies is to increase the chemistry between lines comprised of the top players. Hopefully the team does better with Lukas Haudum. I don't like Steffler with Kernberger. Steffler with Nussbaumer like towards the end of the game will be better.

Lineups are out for the U20 vs Norway today. Backup Goaltenders today.

Wow that was pretty clever. Mellitzer went with a 4F PP set in overtime Poschmann-Obersteiner-Wachter-Baltram and it worked for the GWG. Austria won 3-2 in overtime. Lots of penalties, but Austria pulled it off. Norway will probably finish second worst like they did last year so that's a measuring stick I guess. For the Championship they get back Andreas Roykas Marthinsen and Christian Kåsastul and we get back Lukas Haudum and Yannic Pilloni. That should favor us. The goal is to win out so can't be too excited about a win against the second-worst team but at least it looks like those games should be somewhat locked up especially that tactically everything is still a mess. Hopefully when Bader returns he will clean shop.

U20 lines out against Riga. Steffler bumped to second line. More messing with the forward lines but not adjustment that seem meaningful, basically making the 3rd line the second line, but should do well against a fairly half staffed Riga team.

Ok so Austria beat HS Riga (combination of HK Riga MHL, SK Riga J18 players) 9-3 today. From the box it was a really really messy game from the start a total of 126 PIM. I wasn't too pleased with Flo Baltram getting thrown out in a fight and then 2 minutes later Christof Kromp got in a scuffle. They're two of our best players, this game was against easy enough of an opponent for it to not matter but we can't afford for them to be thrown out in important games in exchange for 3rd line wingers. Felix Maxa and Dario Winkler scored a lot, the game was won by 6.

Hungary today. Really like the line 2 defense idea. See if we can score a goal every five minutes.

https://authockeytxreports.wordpress.com/2016/08/28/exa…ion-and-legios/

Long article on the direction of Austrian hockey as it pertains to international tournaments and also trying to address the legios issue.

My thoughts on the current state of the Austrian Youth system/general statistical formulas to evaluate performance.

https://authockeytxreports.wordpress.com/2016/09/01/exa…areer-planning/

Just a stat update for the first week of action, Lukas Haudum debuts, Benjamin Baumgartner hat trick etc.

https://authockeytxreports.wordpress.com/2016/09/10/sta…lzburg-looming/

Week 2 of action, Komarek scores, Kromp destroys
https://authockeytxreports.wordpress.com/2016/09/17/sta…kromp-destroys/

Statgazing Week 3: Zitz Blitzes, Baumgartner excels
https://authockeytxreports.wordpress.com/2016/09/25/sta…gartner-excels/

The Discrepancy of Size and Skill
https://authockeytxreports.wordpress.com/2016/10/13/the…size-and-skill/

I will be much busier during the international break but here are some events leading up to the international break and a quick stats status update.
https://authockeytxreports.wordpress.com/2016/10/22/mid…national-break/

St. Polten: Austria U18 5-2 Hungary U18
https://authockeytxreports.wordpress.com/2016/11/04/st-…5-2hungary-u18/

St. Polten: Austria U18 1-5 Italy U18
https://authockeytxreports.wordpress.com/2016/11/05/st-…-1-5-italy-u18/

U20 D1A World Championship 2017 Entry List Previews: France and Germany
https://authockeytxreports.wordpress.com/2016/11/18/u20…ce-and-germany/

Beck is talented but needs to move to a bigger club.

Austrian U20 Entry list thoughts
https://authockeytxreports.wordpress.com/2016/11/24/u20…eviews-austria/