Kahun’s long journey leads to Crosby’s line
Domink Kahun sat in front of his computer screen, his eyes glued to the live stream, when the names started popping up, one-byone.
Nathan MacKinnon. Aleksander Barkov. Jonathan Drouin…
It was 2013, the first year that Kahun was eligible for the NHL draft. He had worked virtually his whole life for this moment, through the ranks on his junior team in Germany and in Canada with the Sudbury Wolves of the Ontario Hockey League.
But a weekend that was supposed to fulfil his childhood dream instead turned into a dose of reality. He went undrafted. If that weekend didn’t do enough to prove a point, Kahun followed the live stream again the following year. Again, the draft began and ended without his name being called.
It was a sobering experience that forced Kahun to consider his future in the game.
“I was obviously really disappointed when I never saw my name,” Kahun said. “It made me think, I will probably never play here [in the NHL].”
If Kahun only knew then what was in store for him.
In the last 14 months alone, Kahun’s life has changed dramatically. He was invited to the Chicago Blackhawks’ training camp. Made the team. Got elevated into a top-six role. Played alongside stars like Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane. Tallied 37 points.
And then, just as he was preparing in Germany for his sophomore season, Kahun got a late-night phone call. He had been traded.
To quote the great philosophy Ferris Bueller: “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”
It really does, doesn’t it? Now, look at Kahun today.
The Penguins, who acquired Kahun from Chicago in the Olli Maatta trade, immediately plugged him in on Sidney Crosby’s line during the first two days of training camp.
The player who many considered too small and too scrawny to succeed isn’t just playing in the NHL. He’s lining up alongside one of this generation’s brightest stars.
“It just makes me a little proud,” Kahun, a 5-11, 175pound winger, said. “Everyone thought I would never make it here. I just showed everyone that I can play here.”
To get to this point has been a winding journey, across oceans and through countries.
It starts as a kid in the small town of Weiden, Germany. Like virtually all of Europe, Germany is a soccer-obsessed country. Kahun remembers as a kid, the third or fourth-tier soccer league would be on TV instead of the top hockey league.
But hockey was in Kahun’s blood. He was born in Czech Republic where, “everyone plays hockey” before moving to Germany when he was young. One of his favorite players was, naturally, Czech superstar and former Penguin Jaromir Jagr.
Because NHL games went on while Kahun was sleeping and German hockey was hard to come by on the TV, he learned to get his hockey fix from watching YouTube clips of the game’s best players.
“I always tried to watch the skilled guys, who make plays, who are fast,” Kahun said. “I always had Sid [Crosby] and [Evgeni] Malkin on my list.”
With the YouTube clips as inspiration, Kahun trained with the Jungadler Mannheim U18 team. He later moved to Canada, with the hopes of getting his name out before the draft.
But after two years in Canada without his name being called, Kahun decided to move back to Germany and turn pro. He played for several different German teams and won the Deutsche Eishockey Liga title in 2016.
Then, in 2018, his career began to take off.
The German hockey team qualified for the Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea. That alone was an accomplishment for a country not known for its success on ice. Then, they started winning, beating Switzerland and Sweden. In the semifinals, they squared off against Canada.
“It was the nicest game of my life but also the worst for my nerves,” Kahun said. “We were winning 4-1 after