The Hamburg Freezers are coming fresh off their most successful season ever, having finished first overall in the DEL for the first time in club history. Finishing the season with 30 victories and 102 points in 52 games, it was the best finish since the club was third overall in the 2003-04 season.

by Chapin Landvogt

The Hamburg Freezers are entering their 13th season of DEL play and existence. Originally the Munich Barons from 1999 until 2002, the franchise was relocated to Hamburg for financial reasons by American team owner Philip Anschutz, who also happens to own the archrival Eisbären Berlin. Once in Hamburg, the team was renamed the Hamburg Freezers and is often affectionately referred to as the Eisschränke (iceboxes).

Playing in Hamburg’s O2 World, which is located right next door to renowned football club HSV’s Volkspark Stadium, the team can host an attendance up to 12 947 people. Having placed a great deal of importance on its combined structure in recent years, the Freezers are affiliated with DEL2 champion Bremerhaven Penguins and the local Oberliga (third-highest level of play) HSV. In addition, its youth club was able to successfully gain promotion to Germany’s top junior league, the DNL, just this past season.

An interesting trend within the organisation has been its increasingly heavy French-Canadian influence. It starts with general manager Stéphane Richer, who himself saw time in the NHL and AHL before having a very successful DEL career, primarily with Adler Mannheim. After a short period of coaching, Richer became the GM of the Freezers and has slowly but surely created a well-designed culture of success within the organisation.

The Francophone aspect continues with head coach Benoit Laporte, his assistant Serge Aubin, and part-time goaltending coach Vincent Riendeau, the latter two both ex-NHLers. Laporte has been at the team’s helm since December of 2010, when he came from Switzerland to assume to coaching job from Richer himself, who had decided to step down from his double duties as coach and general manager. Laporte’s success to date can’t be denied, although there was a time last season when it looked like he’d be on his way out after the team found itself in the league’s basement after the first 12 games of the season. Ironically, things turned around for him and the team when French Canadian goaltender Sébastian Caron was brought on board at that point when released from the Iserlohn Roosters. The team never looked back after that.

In 2013-14, the club had its best regular season ever. Unfortunately for the DEL’s northernmost address, their dream of following that top-flight finish with a championship came to a premature end when they lost their seven-game series to eventual champion Ingolstadt four games to two.

This year’s team will also continue to have French-Canadian flair in the line-up. In addition to the returning Caron, the team will also be rolling out defenceman Mathieu Roy as well as forwards Philippe Dupuis and Frederik Cabana. All four were with the team last season and whereas Roy’s season was hindered by injuries, both Dupuis and Cabana (who now has a German pass) played their first seasons in the DEL and showed that after a year of acclimation, they should be ready to assume even more offensive responsibility this fall.

Ready for CHL competition

The organisation is now heading into Champions Hockey League play with a team that will be largely comprised of returnees from last year’s first place squad. Key amongst them are goaltenders Caron and Dimitrij Kotschnew. Both are considered above-average puckstoppers by DEL standards and give the team one of the strongest one-two punches in the country.

The blueline will feature several ex-NHLers in Captain Christoph Schubert and former Blue Jacket Duvie Westcott. Both play critical roles in the make-up of the team and, when healthy, have eaten up a lot of minutes on the backend in recent seasons. The aforementioned Roy is back for his third season with the team and is felt to generally be one of the top 15 defencemen in the league when free of injury. Also returning is a player who was one of the DEL’s biggest bright spots last season. German-Canadian Kevin Schmidt scored nine goals and 25 points while collecting a whopping +26 rating in 64 games in his third season with the Freezers. Former NHL forward Matt Pettinger has helped out on defence in recent seasons and it looks like Laporte will be counting on him to take on a more regular shift on defense so as to create more space for the team’s many options up front while also adding a great deal of experience to the blueline.

Up front, the team has been able to keep nine of its top 11 forwards from last season not including Pettinger. The motors in the team in recent years have been small German-Canadian Garrett Festerling and former Toronto Maple Leafs draft pick Jerome Flaake, who together have built two thirds of the team’s first line the past two seasons. Flaake is the team’s unofficial star and put up a career-high 27 goals and 51 points in 62 games last season. Also continuing their stay in Hamburg are the Danish national players Morten Madsen and Julian Jakobsen. Whereas the latter has done some excellent yeoman’s work for the team the past two seasons, Madsen was able to be one of the team’s offensive cogs while quickly becoming a fan favorite. Not to be forgotten is the team’s rising German star, Thomas Oppenheimer, who just had a career year with 22 goals and 43 points in 64 games despite seeing time with a number of linemates along the way. He then topped this off with a nomination to the national team, for which he promptly became the top scorer at the Worlds with four goals and six points. In addition to Dupuis, who the team very much feels can improve on his 45 points last season, returnee Adam Mitchell has been a mainstay in the league for years now and is one of the team’s most experienced leaders. Also back in the fold for a bigger role is Nico Krammer, a 21-year-old who bloomed to the tune of 19 points and a plus-8 rating in 63 games despite mainly fourth-line minutes last season.

Their opponents in the first round will be Luleå of the Swedish Hockey League, Lukko Rauma of the Finnish Liiga, and the Nottingham Panthers of the British EIHL. With Luleå having been one of Sweden’s top addresses in recent years, they’re clearly being seen as the toughest opponent in the group. At the same time, Nottingham will be a team with a very exotic flair, coming from a league that is considered a bit off the beaten path in European circles. The Freezers’ fans have already planned a major trip to the UK to see their team play its first British action. Chances are that Lukko Rauma is the most evenly-matched opponent in the group and these games will be key for the Freezers if they’re to have any ambitions of moving past the initial phase.

Looking forward

After spending much of the past season giving its top players long-term contracts to stay in Hamburg, the club has been busy this summer nominally improving itself on paper. The team’s one major loss is fan favorite David Wolf, who has crossed the pond to join the Calgary Flames organisation. A rough and tumble take-no-prisoners forward, the son of Canadian-German Mannix Wolf (currently coaching the Leipzig Icefighters) just completed his best professional season, leading the team in scoring with 52 points, including 12 in 10 playoff games. This was accompanied by a whopping 199 penalty minutes.

The Freezers surely won’t be able to replace him directly, but have added several top DEL players to the fold. Chief amongst them are forwards Kevin Clark and Marty Sertich. Clark played his first full season of DEL hockey after parts of three seasons in the AHL and a nice guest appearance to conclude last season, finishing with an impressive 33 goals, 73 points, plus-25 and 118 penalty minutes in 54 games for the Krefeld Penguins this year. After three strong seasons in the Swiss NLB, American Marty Sertich just put up a decent 44 points, 47 penalty minutes and minus-6 rating in 59 games for the Iserlohn Roosters. Both are expected to play key roles in giving the Freezers three effective scoring lines.

On the blueline, the one key addition is Brett Festerling, a former Anaheim Duck and Winnipeg Jet who has a German pass. He spent the past two seasons playing for Nuremberg, but has headed up to the hanseatic city where he’ll join his twin brother Garrett, something folks around the DEL have long expected to see at some juncture. What the team lost in James Bettauer it hopes to have more than made up for by adding German-Canadian Sam Klassen. The Freezers have a knack for finding and signing young, somewhat unestablished Canadian defenceman who have the type of German ancestors that allow them to get German player passes.

All in all, the opinion around the DEL is that the Freezers were not simply a one year wonder last season. General Manager Richer has managed to not only round out the whole organization positively from top to bottom, but has also made promising upgrades without losing any key players other than Wolf. Although there are many reasons a top pro DEL player would look to join the solid Freezers franchise, there’s little doubt that the opportunity to participate in meaningful CHL play has played a key role in the strong additions the team was able to make.

It may still be late July, but the city of Hamburg is more than ready for CHL action.

Team facts

2013/14 individual leaders

Click here for current information about the club.