Oilers’ Leon Draisaitl named captain of Germany’s men’s Olympic team
Team Germany announced on Monday that Edmonton Oilers center Leon Draisaitl will serve as the captain of the national team at the 2026 Winter Olympic games in Milano-Cortina.
Draisaitl was also chosen as Germany’s flagbearer for the opening ceremony.
“It means a lot to me,” Draisaitl said of that honor. “We have a lot of great athletes in our country. There’s many picks that could have got it, and I don’t take it lightly. It’s something I’ll remember for the rest of my life.”
Draisaitl, who turned 30 last October, became the first German player in NHL history to hit the 1,000-point milestone earlier this season. He is already far and away the most productive German-born player in NHL history, as his 1,036 career points more than double those of Marco Sturm, who sits second with 487 points.
Alongside Connor McDavid, serving as an alternate captain for Canada at the Olympics, Draisaitl has pioneered the most successful era of Oilers hockey since the team won five Stanley Cups between 1983 and 1990. Edmonton has lost in each of the past two Stanley Cup Finals at the hands of the Florida Panthers.
Unser Kapitäns-Team für Olympia. #debteams #TeamD #eishockey #olympics
The rest of Germany’s leadership group will be comprised of Mortiz Seider of the Detroit Red Wings and Tim Stutzle of the Ottawa Senators.
Seider is in the midst of a career season with the Red Wings, as he is firmly in consideration for the Norris Trophy as the NHL’s top defenseman, and he’s been a massive factor in Detroit’s status as a legitimate contender in the Eastern Conference.
Stutzle has 61 points on 28 goals and 33 assists in 57 games played with Ottawa, and he’s tracking to have his first point-per-game season since the 2022-23 campaign.
The triumvirate represents the best collection of top-tier talent that Germany has ever had available for its hockey team. The Germans earned the bronze medal in the 1932 and 1976 Games as well as a silver in 2018, when NHL players were not part of the competition.
Since the turn of the century when NHL players did attend the Olympics, Germany finished 8th in Salt Lake City in 2002, 10th in Turin in 2006, 11th in Vancouver in 2010 and did not qualify for Sochi in 2014.