How Moritz Seider Became A Draft Steal (2022)
The Hockey News has released its archive to all THN subscribers: 76 years of history, stories, and features.
Subscribe now to view the full THN Archives here
Also, go to thn.com/free to subscribe.
THE HOCKEY NEWS’ 2019 Draft Preview rated Seider 22nd in his class, well below projected stars such as Jack Hughes and Kaapo Kakko but also behind half a dozen players who still don’t take regular shifts in the NHL today. The scouting report complimented Seider’s 6-foot-4 frame and big shot but described him as an “intriguing but raw prospect” and qualified his strong play with Mannheim of the DEL with, “The German League is not the best league in Europe, but…”
Perhaps it was the German factor obscuring Seider’s top-prospect status. At the time, his nation had produced just 15 NHL defensemen, and only three had made sizable impacts: puck-mover Christian Ehrhoff, whom Seider looked up to; rugged Stanley Cup winner Dennis Seidenberg; and Uwe Krupp, who scored the Cup-clinching goal in overtime for the Colorado Avalanche in 1996. Seider also didn’t come from a rich bloodline of athletes. His parents ran a home for the elderly before quitting to move to Mannheim to support their son’s hockey dream when he was 13.
But the new Yzerman regime saw something in Seider anyway, and not just because he’d won DEL rookie of the year in 2018-19. They identified a caliber of two-way hockey sense that’s tough to teach. The Wings had a history of hitting home runs at the draft when going off the board, having selected seven-time Norris Trophy winner Nicklas Lidstrom 53rd overall in 1989, a pick they settled on because of his preternatural hockey sense. Yzerman, Lidstrom’s longtime teammate, was transferring that logic to pick Seider, a kid who grew up watching Lidstrom’s games “every single night,” as Seider puts it.
To get drafted far earlier than expected and attract immediate Lidstrom comparisons could leave most…
