Back when Jägermeister was an official sponsor of the NHL (and they missed a golden sponsorship opportunity with Jaromir Jagr) they would always run a commercial with a girl saying “of course it’s cold, it’s German”. Why do we bring that up? Well there have been quite a few hockey players from Deutschland taking the NHL by storm. Back when Leon Draisatl was drafted third overall in the 2014 NHL Draft, they were a rarity. Now they’re not as common as a BMW, but they’re getting there.
One interesting German NHLer is Lukas Reichel. Reichel was taken by the Chicago Blackhawks 17th overall in the 2020 NHL draft and was recently traded for a 2027 fourth round pick to the Vancouver Canucks. It’s fair to say Reichel was drafted way too high, but too soon to completely label him a bust.
At the time, Reichel at 17 was a bit of a reach. Bleacher Report had him going 31st overall to the San Jose Sharks in one of their mock drafts. A redraft from The Athletic two seasons ago gave Reichel too much credit and re-drafted him with the 14th overall pick. To be fair, draft guru Bob McKenzie didn’t have Reichel that far off ranked at No. 20 in his June 2020 rankings. What exactly where the Blackhawks thinking?
Let’s address the elephant in the room here that everything about 2020 was weird and unprecedented. Tournaments were cancelled (that year’s World Juniors was able to happen) and junior seasons cut way too short. Teams and scouts had a much smaller pool of work to work with when scouting and deciding on talent. It was even worse for players overseas. At the time Reichel was playing in the Deutsche Eishockey Liga in Germany.
The Blackhawks were also in a very weird position. They were in their post-dynasty years yet still had franchise icons Patrick Kane, Jonathan Toews and Duncan Keith. Much like the Pittsburgh Penguins are now, they were motivated to give them one last chance at winning while prolonging the inevitable rebuild.
The unprecedented set up of the 2020 playoffs (remember, there was a 24 team play-in) gave the Blackhawks one of those 16 “real” playoff spots. That also gave Chicago false hope of their competitive timeline and a later pick than expected.
Here’s a theory about Reichel: perhaps he was overvalued because he was German? Draisatl had smashed any expectation for German born players and continued over exceeded them each season. Fellow German Tim Stutzle entered the 2020 draft as a top prospect. Is it possible maybe the Blackhawks tried to make a “big brain” move and thinking they were ahead of the curve by going against the traditional norms and drafting a CHL player in that draft range?
Whatever the reason Reichel never took off in the Windy City. Then again he was never surrounded with any real talent in the Windy City with the exception of Connor Bedard. Even as the generational first overall pick saw his line mates constantly change Reichel was not one of the revolving door of players placed with Bedard. Reichel’s career high in points is 22, which he scored last season in 70 games.
Various re-drafts don’t even have Reichel as a first round pick. He was left entirely off “the Hockey Guy” on YouTube’s first round redraft. In that same redraft his countryman Stutzle was ranked first overall. That seems the consensus among most redrafts. The Canucks are using Reichel as their second line center in between Evander Kane and Brock Broeser. Reichel is pointless in three games since the trade.