Alexander Sulzer

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GermanyGermany  Alexander Sulzer Ice hockey player
Alexander Sulzer
Date of birth May 30, 1984
place of birth Kaufbeuren , Germany
size 185 cm
Weight 94 kg
position defender
number # 52
Shot hand Left
Draft
NHL Entry Draft 2003 , 3rd round, 92nd position
Nashville Predators
Career stations
until 2002 ESV Kaufbeuren
2002-2003 Hamburg Freezers
2003-2007 DEG Metro Stars
2007-2010 Milwaukee Admirals
2010-2011 Nashville Predators
2011 Florida panthers
2011–2012 Vancouver Canucks
2012-2014 Buffalo Sabers
2014-2019 Cologne Sharks

Alexander Sulzer (born May 30, 1984 in Kaufbeuren ) is a German ice hockey player who was last under contract with the Düsseldorfer EG from the German ice hockey league .

Career

Sulzer went through the youth department of his home club ESV Kaufbeuren and received in the season 2000/01 - at the age of 16 years - first playing times in the first team of Kaufbeuren in the major league . In the following season, the offensive defender played regularly in the upper division team of ESV, with whom he celebrated promotion to the 2nd Bundesliga , although the team lost the final of the upper division championship against Bavarian rivals Landshut Cannibals . Nonetheless, Sulzer, who had only played 18 times in the previous season instead of 38 appearances, showed a great improvement, as he achieved ten points in these 18 matches, one more than in the previous year. For the 2002/03 season, the right-handed shooter, equipped with a support license , moved to the Hamburg Freezers in the German Ice Hockey League . However, he often played in Kaufbeuren in the preliminary round in order to get enough match practice. Finally he came in the main round to 18 appearances for the Freezers in the DEL and 26 for Kaufbeuren in the 2nd division.

Sulzer in the DEG Metro Stars jersey

The following summer, the defender was selected in the third round of the 2003 NHL Entry Draft in 92nd position by the Nashville Predators . He also moved within the DEL to the DEG Metro Stars , as the Predators initially refrained from signing their draft pick. Sulzer developed into a regular player in Düsseldorf when he played the entire main round there in his first year and was also used in the playoffs. All of this was possible, although the defensive specialist was the victim of a robbery in downtown Düsseldorf shortly after the start of the season and suffered various injuries. The following season was similarly successful, as he was able to more than double his point production of the previous year with eleven points. Nevertheless, the Metro Stars did not reach the playoffs. For this reason he came to the Füchsen Duisburg in the 2nd Bundesliga and helped them in seven games to promotion to the DEL. In the 2005/06 season , Sulzer again set a personal record with 18 points and played a major role in reaching the playoff final with DEG, which was clearly lost against the Eisbären Berlin . During this season, the Kaufbeurer - as a player in the DEB selection  - also took part in the DEL All-Star Game for the first time . He participated again in the DEL All-Star Game 2007 , this time as a player in the European team. The 2006/07 season , in which he repeatedly showed solid statistics, was also his last in the DEG Metro Stars dress.

Due to a contract offer from the Nashville Predators from the National Hockey League in spring 2007, Sulzer left the team , despite a contract with the Düsseldorf team that was valid until summer 2008, and moved to North America after signing a two-year contract on May 23, 2007. This contract was also valid for the American Hockey League. Sulzer spent the entire 2007/08 season in the AHL after Nashville had turned him off to their cooperation partner , the Milwaukee Admirals , before the start of the season . The German played 61 out of a possible 80 games for the Admirals, but fell out due to injury towards the end of the season and was not used in the playoffs. With 32 scorer points he played his best professional season to date. The defender began with the Admirals in the 2008/09 season . On January 8, 2009, his consistently good performance led Sulzer to extend his contract with the Nashville Predators for another two years. The new offer was endowed with $ 1.3 million and no longer valid for the AHL as much as the previous one. Just a week later, on January 15, he made his debut in the Predators game against the Montréal Canadiens in the NHL, after he had been ordered for the first time in the NHL squad the day before. At this point he had scored 29 points in 39 AHL games, making him the third-best defender in the entire league.

On February 25, 2011, the Nashville Predators gave him in a transfer deal in exchange for a performance-related seven-round suffrage in the 2012 NHL Entry Draft to the Florida Panthers . On July 7, 2011, Sulzer signed a contract with the Vancouver Canucks .

Almost exactly a year later, on February 27, 2012, Sulzer was again part of a transfer. Shortly before the trade deadline expired, the defender was sent to the Buffalo Sabers along with Cody Hodgson for Marc-André Gragnani and Zack Kassian . From the start of his commitment to the Sabers in the 2011/12 NHL season , Sulzer played with his teammate Christian Ehrhoff in the defensive pair, with whom he was on the ice for the German national ice hockey team at the 2010 Winter Olympics and the 2010 Ice Hockey World Championship . The native of Kaufbeuren achieved his first goal for his new team from Buffalo on March 14, 2012 in a game against the Colorado Avalanche .

Due to the NHL lockout , Sulzer played for ERC Ingolstadt from the German Ice Hockey League in autumn 2012 . During the remainder of the NHL season , Sulzer completed 17 games for the Sabers and was no longer part of the permanent squad from February 2013. This situation did not change with the start of the new season , as he was still rarely on the ice or found himself with the AHL farm team, the Rochester Americans . In November 2013, the Sabers called him back to the NHL squad.

From the 2014/15 season, Sulzer played for the Kölner Haie and in the following years played a total of 171 DEL games for the Haie, in which he scored 12 goals and 54 assists. Due to injury, however, he increasingly missed parts of the season. For the 2019/20 season, Sulzer was once again signed by the Düsseldorfer EG for a year. In August 2019, in preparation for the season, Sulzer was diagnosed with a benign tumor on the cervical spine , which was successfully surgically removed. Due to the illness, Sulzer missed the entire season, so that Sulzer did not play a single game for DEG.

International

Sulzer at the 2010 Olympic Games.

Sulzer has played seven times for the German national team at international level , including two in the junior division.

He completed his first international tournament with the U20 Junior World Championship in 2003 , where he could not prevent the Germans from relegating to the B group despite two assists in six games. In the following year he took part in the U20 World Junior Championship of Division I with the national selection . There Germany managed to rise again immediately. The defender played a major role in this with nine points in five games and was named the best defender of the tournament. At senior level he ran at the A World Championships in 2005 and 2007 , the world championship of Division I in 2006 and the Olympic Winter Games in 2006 in Turin and 2010 in Vancouver on.

After 64 international matches, four World Cup and two Olympic appearances, Sulzer stepped down from the DEB selection in March 2017.

Achievements and Awards

International

Career statistics

Status: end of the 2018/19 season

Regular season Play-offs / -downs
season team league Sp T V Pt SM Sp T V Pt SM
2000/01 ESV Kaufbeuren Oberliga 38 3 6th 9 20th
2001/02 ESV Kaufbeuren Oberliga 18th 1 9 10 14th
2002/03 Hamburg Freezers DEL 18th 0 1 1 18th 5 0 0 0 12
2002/03 ESV Kaufbeuren 2nd Bundesliga 26th 4th 3 7th 38 1 1 0 1 1 4th
2003/04 DEG Metro Stars DEL 46 4th 1 5 51 4th 0 0 0 8th
2004/05 DEG Metro Stars DEL 45 5 6th 11 68 - - - - -
2004/05 Foxes Duisburg 2nd Bundesliga - - - - - 7th 0 3 3 6th
2005/06 DEG Metro Stars DEL 48 3 15th 18th 82 13 3 6th 9 22nd
2006/07 DEG Metro Stars DEL 44 4th 11 15th 82 9 2 1 3 20th
2007/08 Milwaukee Admirals AHL 61 7th 25th 32 47 - - - - -
2008/09 Milwaukee Admirals AHL 48 8th 26th 34 36 - - - - -
2008/09 Nashville Predators NHL 2 0 0 0 0 - - - - -
2009/10 Milwaukee Admirals AHL 36 7th 23 30th 8th 7th 1 5 6th 2
2009/10 Nashville Predators NHL 20th 0 2 2 4th - - - - -
2010/11 Nashville Predators NHL 31 1 3 4th 14th - - - - -
2010/11 Florida panthers NHL 9 0 1 1 0 - - - - -
2011/12 Vancouver Canucks NHL 12 0 1 1 2 - - - - -
2011/12 Buffalo Sabers NHL 15th 3 5 8th 6th - - - - -
2012/13 Buffalo Sabers NHL 17th 3 1 4th 10 - - - - -
2013/14 Rochester Americans AHL 10 2 5 7th 4th - - - - -
2013/14 Buffalo Sabers NHL 25th 0 2 2 8th - - - - -
2014/15 Cologne Sharks DEL 44 6th 20th 26th 36 - - - - -
2015/16 Cologne Sharks DEL 30th 3 13 16 18th 15th 1 2 3 6th
2016/17 Cologne Sharks DEL 39 2 4th 6th 12 7th 0 0 0 0
2017/18 Cologne Sharks DEL 32 0 8th 8th 18th 5 0 1 1 2
2018/19 Cologne Sharks DEL 26th 1 9 10 16 - - - - -
Oberliga overall 56 4th 15th 19th 34
2. Bundesliga overall 26th 4th 3 7th 38 8th 0 4th 4th 10
DEL total 393 30th 102 132 409 58 6th 10 16 70
AHL total 155 24 79 103 103 7th 1 5 6th 2
NHL overall 131 7th 15th 22nd 44 - - - - -

International

Represented Germany at:

year team event Sp T V Pt SM
2003 Germany U20 World Cup 6th 0 2 2 14th
2004 Germany U20 World Cup Div. I. 5 2 7th 9 12
2005 Germany WM 3 0 0 0 4th
2006 Germany Olympia 5 0 1 1 2
2006 Germany WM Div. I. 5 0 3 3 2
2007 Germany WM 6th 0 0 0 4th
2010 Germany Olympia 4th 0 0 0 4th
Juniors overall 11 2 9 11 26th
Men overall 23 0 4th 4th 16

( Legend for player statistics: Sp or GP = games played; T or G = goals scored; V or A = assists scored ; Pkt or Pts = scorer points scored ; SM or PIM = penalty minutes received ; +/− = plus / minus balance; PP = overpaid goals scored ; SH = underpaid goals scored ; GW = winning goals scored; 1  play-downs / relegation )

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ hockeysfuture.com, Nashville prospect Alex Sulzer suffers injuries in brutal mugging
  2. ↑ eishockey.info, Alexander Sulzer tries his luck in the NHL
  3. ↑ predators.nhl.com, Preds sign defenseman Alexander Sulzer to two-year deal
  4. ^ Sabers land Hodgson in four-player deal. NHL .com, accessed February 27, 2012 .
  5. ↑ Alexander Sulzer # 52 - Game Log. NHL .com, accessed March 24, 2012 .
  6. ↑ nhl.com: "SULZER RECALLED, McCORMICK OUT AT LEAST A WEEK" (English, November 23, 2013, accessed December 5, 2013)
  7. ↑ DEG obliges experience: Alexander Sulzer is coming back to Düsseldorf! “I really feel like playing ice hockey”. Retrieved May 9, 2019 .
  8. ↑ Daniel Mertens: DEG defender Alexander Sulzer: Little prospect of a comeback. In: rp-online.de. May 10, 2020, accessed May 19, 2020 .
  9. ↑ Sport1.de: Ice hockey: Alexander Sulzer resigns from DEB selection. In: sport1.de. March 30, 2017. Retrieved April 3, 2017 .

Web links

Commons : Alexander Sulzer  - collection of images, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Sulzer, Alexander
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Sulzer, Alex
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German ice hockey player
DATE OF BIRTH May 30, 1984
PLACE OF BIRTH Kaufbeuren , Germany