Global Series blog: Tobias Rieder

The Edmonton Oilers and New Jersey Devils are participating in the 2018 NHL Global Series. The Oilers will play a preseason game against Kolner Haie at Lanxess Arena in Cologne, Germany, on Wednesday (10 a.m. ET; NHLN, SN, NHL.TV) and will open the regular season against the Devils at Scandinavium in Gothenburg, Sweden, on Saturday (1 p.m. ET; NHLN, SN, MSG+, NHL.TV).
Oilers forward Tobias Rieder, born in Landshut, Germany, will detail his experiences on the trip in his own NHL.com blog. Here is Rieder's third entry:

COLOGNE, Germany --After practice Monday, the German reporters asked me the same kinds of questions the North Americans have. How do you feel being on a new team? What's the chemistry like? What are your goals for the season? How excited are we to play here?
Obviously [Oilers center] Leon Draisaitl is the hometown boy here. His name is obviously well known here in the hockey community. And then there's people who want to see the best player in the world, [Oilers center] Connor McDavid. I think they're getting their money's worth.
He's fast. You see that on TV. But if you see it in real life, it's something different. I think people are really going to wonder what they put in his food when they see him out there. I've witnessed it. I've seen him on TV a lot. I've played against him. But now I get to see him day to day on the ice. He does everything well. What they're probably going to notice is obviously his speed and his hands, and how he just creates stuff, how he makes other players look slow compared to him.
I think people here also are really excited to see a full NHL team play live. The German fans might have seen a couple games in the IIHF World Championship. There's a couple NHL players here and there. But they've never seen a full squad together.
How will we match up with the Cologne Sharks? You know, I've never played against a [German League], so I don't really know. I know a couple of guys from playing with them on the German national team. They are highly skilled players. And there are players who played over in Russia and stuff like that, players who played in the NHL.
So you know, they have good teams over here. I guess we've got to wait until Wednesday.