For six and four seasons, respectively, Brady Tkachuk and Jake Sanderson have had front row seats to Tim Stützle’s highlight reel, which includes batting pucks out of mid-air over opposing netminders, and recording both goals and assists thanks to between-the legs handiwork.
Lars Eller has seen just a year of the Stützle show from up close, but even so, the slideshow of Stützle’s 2025-26 highlights is longer than highlights from the average NHL player’s career.
USA, Germany, and Denmark are all in the same group at the Olympics — call Group C a Senators reunion sans Nikolas Matinpalo — so in Milan, Stützle will be giving his three NHL teammates headaches instead of relieving them.
Stützle enters Germany’s opener on Thursday against Denmark riding a five-game goal streak with the Senators, the longest of his career. The last of those was a breakaway overtime winner against Philadelphia set up by Tkachuk in the final game for Ottawa before the break.
“I don’t even know where to start, that guy’s elite at what he does,” said Stützle’s locker room stall mate Nick Cousins after that win.
“Definitely have a better appreciation for him now that I see him on every day on a regular basis just in practice and whatnot. But, [he’s] real good defensively, that maybe doesn’t get talked about enough. He’s great on the penalty kill, he uses his speed a lot to generate chances. We’re certainly lucky to have him, [and] when he’s at the top of his game, it kind of bleeds through the rest of the lineup.”
The 24-year-old Stützle has drawn similar praise from the rest of his team and coaching staff throughout the season for a variety of aspects of his game.
He’s winning 53.6 per cent of his faceoffs, up from his previous career rate of 43.2 per cent. Through two-thirds of the season, he’s already surpassed his previous career high of time on ice on the penalty kill. And, if he continues on his current goal-scoring pace, he’ll finish with 40 goals, which would be the first time reaching that milestone.
It’s hard to picture how Stützle could raise his game to another level at the Olympics, but it also wouldn’t be surprising given the tangible growth he’s exhibited with every new responsibility he’s been handed with the Senators this year.
Meanwhile, Germany’s men’s national team has also been on the rise in recent years. They failed to qualify for the 2014 Sochi Olympics for the first time since West Germany and East Germany were united in 1990.
At the 2018 Pyeongchang Olympics without NHLers, they earned a silver medal, the first in the program’s history. And, at the 2023 IIHF World Championships in Finland, they reached the gold medal game before falling to Canada. That was their first medal at the World Championships since 1953.
“I think it’s awesome to see,” said Stützle about the emergence of their national program. “But at the end of the day, we know how hard it’s going to be. When every player is there, it’s always going to be hard, and yeah, we just know what we have to do, we’ll just try our best and go from there.”
Stützle was named an alternate captain for Germany alongside Moritz Seider, while Edmonton Oilers superstar Leon Draisaitl was unsurprisingly named captain. They will open with a game against Eller and Team Denmark on Thursday, then take on Latvia on Saturday and Team USA on Sunday.
“I think it’s going to be great, obviously the US has a good team, I think Denmark’s going to have a good team too, yeah, it’s going to be hard fought battles, and I’m definitely looking forward to it,” said Stützle.
