FEATURE: Blackhawks See Long-Term Impact in Top Pick Lukas Reichel

The lights come up inside Mercedes-Benz Arena in Berlin. 'The Kurve' supporters group is full-voice behind the Blackhawks' net. And 17-year-old Lukas Reichel awaits the opening faceoff, shoulder-to-shoulder with his childhood idol, Patrick Kane.
It's September 29, 2019. Chicago is gearing up in a final test ahead of the 2019-20 season against German-powerhouse Eisbären Berlin. It's an international exhibition game that, as it turns out, would foreshadow the NHL-hopeful Reichel's destiny a year and one week later.

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"The game against Chicago was unreal for me," Reichel said last week, just minutes after the Blackhawks
drafted the German forward with the 17th overall pick
in the 2020 NHL Draft.
"We were paying attention to him," Blackhawks Senior Vice President/General Manager Stan Bowman recalled of the game 12 months earlier. "I just remember noticing his speed and just how fluid he was on the ice."
In a normal draft environment, Reichel would've been in Montreal for the first round of the draft, welcomed on stage and presented with a Blackhawks jersey. But in the COVID-altered draft world, the now-18-year-old was home in Germany with his family and closest friends, watching it all unfold in a restaurant into the wee hours of the morning.
Because the Blackhawks were his team growing up, he had an old jersey on standby just in case his name was called.

"It was funny because when we did the (pre-draft) Zoom interview with him, I asked him, 'Tell me about your first shift (against the Blackhawks),'" Chicago's
ever-pressing
VP of Amateur Scouting Mark Kelley recalled. "He was a little bit confused, 'My first shift?' I go, 'Who did you line up next to?' and he said, 'Patrick Kane.'
"My next question to him was, 'Did you throw a punch?'"
It was there that the winger first opened up to the Blackhawks' staff about how big a fan he was of No. 88, what the exhibition meant to him personally and his dream of playing in Chicago.
But in reality, he wasn't even supposed to be on the ice that night in Berlin.
"He went to Eisbären, they recruited him there, but the expectation this year was that he would play with the J-20 (team)," Kelley said. "He went to training camp and really from the outset, in talking to the Eisbären people, he exceeded their expectations. He made the team (and was) an important part of the team. If you watch them play, he was playing in the top nine and he was on the top power play. What really stood out for us was he kept exceeding expectations."

And the progression he continued to take from the Blackhawks' first look at him a year earlier played a key role in their confidence to take the playmaker in the opening round, with his trajectory expected to only continue upward.
"You could tell he was a 17 year old playing in a men's league," Bowman said of the game in Berlin. "I went back again in late January for a trip in Europe and I got a chance to see him play and it was a pretty impressive progression just for those couple months. I watched some games as well when he played in February. I didn't see those live, but I watched the steps that he took. Really impressed with his overall game."
"Because of the IQ, his ability to play with skill players, we think he has the potential to be an impact player and play in the top six," Kelley said after the draft. "His IQ and his puck skills, I think we project him to be able to play with a Kirby (Dach), with a 'Kaner,' certainly with a (Alex) DeBrincat. He has that kind of play-making ability that he can make fast plays."
The tools, Kelley said, are there for Reichel to be a staple of the Blackhawks lineup for many years to come.
Today, though, Reichel's not physically ready to make the jump to the NHL quite yet, acknowledging he still needs to get stronger to compete at the highest level. He's already making strides as he awaits the still-to-be-decided start of the German season, adding nearly 15 pounds to his frame since March as he continues to work with the Eisbären staff to further his maturation.

"For a guy who's not really built up physically strong yet, he (already) showed an uncanny ability to be really good in the corners," Bowman said. "In some ways I compare him to the way that Kirby can do it -- they can spin off players and even though they're not bigger than some guys, they can find a way to keep the battle going and then come out of there with puck. We liked a lot of those things and that's something that you notice in a player.
"Those things are somewhat tougher to coach or to teach. You can work on their strength, you can work on some of the more technical things about their shot, but those are more instinctive … when you look at where he is already and once he does catch up to some of the other people physically, I think he's going to be a really talented guy."
"He's in a really good spot," Kelley said of Reichel remaining in Berlin for the time being. "He gets lots of ice time. The development he's getting right now with Eisbären, we like that. That was one of the attractions to him: he's in a really good situation. If you look at it development-wise, it's a perfect fit."