STUETZLE FIRED UP FOR SENATORS TRAINING CAMP
With his rookie season behind him, forward worked on puck skills while in Germany
Tim Stuetzle is back in town and ready to roll.
Fresh off an overseas flight back from his off-season home in Mannheim, Germany, the Ottawa Senators' No. 3 overall selection spent Friday on the ice with several his teammates at the Canadian Tire Centre who are in town preparing for the opening of training camp Sept. 22.
“I'm really excited and I can't wait to get going,” Stuetzle told Postmedia in a telephone interview Friday from his Ottawa home.
There's no question Stuetzle can look back on his rookie season in the NHL as a success. He arrived in Ottawa after suiting up for Germany at the World Junior Championships, quarantined for a week and then hit the ground running in January. He finished with 12 goals and 29 points in 53 games playing in the all-Canadian division.
Stuetzle had a busy summer. He took a vacation in Spain and Greece during the first month of the break, visited with his parents a couple of hours away from Mannheim and then returned to the city to get back on the ice in June to begin training for this year.
Stuetzle skated with Detroit Red Wings prospect Mortiz Seider, who was selected No. 6 overall in 2019 and played 49 games with the club's AHL affiliate in Grand Rapids last season, along with winger Marc Michaelis, who was signed as an unrestricted free agent and suited up for 15 games with the Vancouver Canucks in 2020-21.
They were on the ice most days with a skills coach and a goaltender working on their games to get ready for camp. In the last month or so, that group has gotten bigger to include some injured players from Mannheim along with players from the German national team that were preparing for their season as well.
He said he has always been the kind of player who didn't like taking much time away from the ice.
“I started skating really early, having fun and playing threeagainst-three,” Stuetzle said. “We had a group of about eight guys on the ice and sometimes a little bit less. Mannheim had to focus on (its) season and their training camp because the season started for them (Friday) and I'm just watching the game right now.
“I'm here in Ottawa to skate with the guys and today was my first day on the ice and we had a lot of fun.”
When Stuetzle sat down for his exit meetings with general manager Pierre Dorion and coach D.J. Smith, their requests for what he was to work on in the summer weren't much different for any other player his age. Naturally, they wanted him to get stronger — which Stuetzle said he did — and work on his play away from the puck. Stuetzle has every right to be satisfied but he's his own worst critic and wants to make strides this season.
“I felt like I could work on everything,” said Stuetzle. “Especially winning more puck battles ... I worked a lot on my shot during the off-season, I changed something with my stick, too. I feel really good right now and can't wait to get started.
“For the last three months I've been skating and working out. My body is feeling really good and I can't wait for camp to get started and finally playing some games. We're all really excited for the upcoming season. Right now, almost everybody is here so we're having fun together, going out to dinner together and so it's been great.”
He said he wants to make improvements at both ends of the ice this season.
“I've always been a guy that has been pretty hard on myself and I still think I can play a lot better than I did,” said Stuetzle, who attend the NHL's Media Tour for Canadian teams in Toronto Monday. “I feel like I can score more goals and I had a ton of chances as well, so overall I can definitely be better. I've got to be better in some situations by handling the puck smarter.”
There were nights he dazzled with his skills and the enthusiastic way he approaches the game is infectious. He will celebrate his 20th birthday in January and his game showed maturity. Speaking to The Fan 590 in Toronto Thursday, Dorion was pleased with Stuetzle.
“We were really impressed with his rookie season, coming in and stepping into the NHL, a man's league at 18 years old and being able to do what he did,” said Dorion. “Overall, what he did was pretty special. There were times where you saw he was an 18-year-old boy, but there were other times where you saw flashes of brilliance where you said, `Wow, this guy has the potential to be a superstar in this league.'”
So, what was the biggest thing he learned last season?
“The biggest thing is the game is completely different here than it's in Germany or Europe,” Stuetzle said. “The ice is much smaller ... so you've got to do a better job handling the puck. That's what I had to do a lot last year and I learned a lot.”
Stuetzle wants to be part of the core with the likes of Thomas Chabot, Brady Tkachuk, Josh Norris, Colin White, Alex Formenton and Drake Batherson that helps this team make the next step by being competitive every night.
“It's always pretty hard to predict what we're going to do but we're a really young team and our goal is to be close to a playoff spot if not in the playoffs,” Stuetzle said. “We have a really young group but we have a lot of really good players. Our group is so tight and everybody loves to work hard and play for each other.”