Tobias Rieder, Thomas Greiss and Dennis Seidenberg will meet some club mates tomorrow at the start against Team USA
“We are happy that it is finally starting,” said Tobias Rieder when he came off the ice on Thursday and answered questions from numerous media representatives in the LANXESS arena. Rieder spoke on behalf of his teammates on the national team. The German selection still has to wait for another training session on Friday morning before things get serious against Team USA.
Rieder as well as Dennis Seidenberg and Thomas Greiss will meet some teammates from their NHL clubs. “I even lived in a house with Connor Murphy in Arizona,” said Rieder and grinned: “We were already in contact and of course talked about the match.” Seidenberg and Greiss will meet Brock Nelson and Anders Lee, among others. “The two are strong players,” said Greiss.
National coach Marco Sturm and his coaching colleagues also observed the “Yanks” during training. The US boys' only test match against Italy went clearly to the favorites with a score of 5:2. Sturm knows: “The Americans didn't come with a team full of college players this year, they are seasoned NHL professionals.” The coach is not interested in the fact that the opponent was last defeated at the 2016 World Cup in Russia. “You can’t compare things like that. They are much stronger this time.”
It was not yet known on Thursday which squad Sturm himself would field. The national coach will probably only announce his squad two hours before the start of the game. The only thing that is certain is that Thomas Greiss will be in goal. “He should be used in most games,” said Sturm.