Photo: Imago
Recently the Washington Capitals signed 21-year-old European free agent Maximilian Kammerer from the German league DEL. Not much is known about the young C/LW. He has great speed and nice hands, but not overtly physical. So basically like most European players.
After looking at his season this year in the DEL, he looks quite impressive. He ended up with the 2nd most points on his team, 31 in 52 games, which was also good for 42nd in the league. His team was 11th out of 14 and missed the playoffs, so Kammerer may not have been getting much help.
The most impressive part about all of that is he was the youngest player on his squad. There were 23 players older than Kammerer. Only 1 guy had more points than him and that player was 35 years old, 14 years older than Kammerer.
In fact, Kammerer led his team in assists with 25 this season, the next closest player had 18. What’s interesting about that is that during the 2016-2017 season, he led his team in goals with 15, the next closest player had 11. So it seems like he does a little bit of everything for his team.
Looking at the DEL as a whole, Kammerer was 1st for U22 players (reminder he’s 21) by quite a lot. He had 31 points when the next player had 17. He’s 2nd in points for U23 players, still 2nd if you switch it to U24, and 3rd for U25 players. He’s only 21, turns 22 in September. So there might be a little something more there for the young German forward.
Of course, as usual when signing players who haven’t been drafted, it’s more than likely he won’t turn out to be anything special. The chances of him making the NHL are small. But like the Jusso Ikonen signing, it cost the Capitals nothing in terms of draft picks so it’s a low risk maneuver that could potentially pay off. At the very least, Maximilian should help the Hershey Bears who really need speed and skill.
By Luke Adomanis
