{"id":503390,"date":"2026-03-14T18:19:25","date_gmt":"2026-03-14T18:19:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/503390\/"},"modified":"2026-03-14T18:19:25","modified_gmt":"2026-03-14T18:19:25","slug":"ottawa-senators-tim-stutzle-drake-batherson-excited-for-trip-to-germany-in-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/503390\/","title":{"rendered":"Ottawa Senators\u2019 Tim Stutzle, Drake Batherson excited for trip to Germany in 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

The National Hockey League announced on Friday<\/a> that the Ottawa Senators<\/a> will play two games in Duesseldorf in December, which has a couple of players on the team with close ties to the country, excited for next season.<\/p>\n

As part of the NHL Global Series, the Senators will play two games against the Chicago Blackhawks<\/a> at PSD Bank Dome in Duesseldorf – the second and third regular-season games ever played in Germany after the Buffalo Sabres<\/a> and Los Angeles Kings<\/a> battled in Berlin in 2011.<\/p>\n

Senators star forward Tim Stutzle, who was born and raised in Germany and represented the country at the Olympics in Milan in February, said that Senators management let him know ahead of time that this announcement was coming, and that he could barely contain his excitement.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wasn\u2019t supposed to tell anyone,\u201d Stutzle said on Saturday, per TSN\u2019s Claire Hanna. \u201cBut couldn\u2019t really hold it in, so I told a bunch of the guys\u2026 [it\u2019s] 20 minutes from where I grew up, so it\u2019ll be awesome. Show the boys around Germany.\u201d<\/p>\n

The red-hot Stutzle, who has eight goals and 19 points during an ongoing 14-game point streak that started back in January, grew up in a city called Krefeld, just northwest of Duesseldorf.<\/p>\n

\u201cHopefully we can get dinner at my parents\u2019 house,\u201d Stutzle said. \u201cI\u2019m really excited for my parents, gonna call them today. I kind of told them briefly, but ya, it wasn\u2019t 100 per cent yet. Now that it\u2019s official, [it\u2019s] really exciting.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stutzle, 24, scored four goals to lead Germany at Milano Cortina 2026 and finished second behind Leon Draisaitl<\/a> in points on the team with six. The team finished sixth overall, its best finish in any Olympic tournament in which NHL players were permitted to play.<\/p>\n

Stutzle is hopeful that the team\u2019s success at the tournament, combined with the added presence of the league through the Global Series, can help it grow even more than it has since Stutzle was a child.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor us as a small hockey country, it\u2019s trying to get better every year,\u201d Stutzle said. \u201cKeep working on those things and try to get more kids to play hockey. I think that\u2019s the biggest part we can do. Be role models for them … If I were that age, I would have loved to see the NHL in Germany. I think that\u2019s really going to grow the game as well.\u201d Stutzle did not attend when the Kings played the Sabres in Berlin 15 years ago.<\/p>\n

Senators winger Drake Batherson<\/a> also has close ties to hockey in Germany, as he spent the first eight years of his life there when his dad played hockey there.<\/p>\n

\u201c[I\u2019m] Excited, I haven\u2019t been there since I moved back,\u201d Batherson told Hanna. \u201cAll my buddies, all the minor hockey I played was in Germany. I hung out with all German people, the only time I spoke English was at my house.\u201d<\/p>\n

Batherson, 27, trails only Stutzle in goals and points on the Senators this season. He said that one of his favourite memories of living in Germany was the final year that his father, Norm, played there. Because Norm knew that he was playing his final season and the schedule wouldn\u2019t allow for a full school year, Batherson spent the end of the season \u201cliving the pro hockey life\u201d with his dad.<\/p>\n

The one thing Batherson is most excited to get back to in Germany? <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m excited to get back and have some pretzels,\u201d Batherson said. \u201cI\u2019ve missed those.\u201d<\/p>\n

The surging Senators have more to look forward to this year. With wins in four of their past six games, the Senators are five points out of a playoff spot in the Eastern Conference. Ottawa was eliminated in the first round of the playoffs last season by the Toronto Maple Leafs<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The National Hockey League announced on Friday that the Ottawa Senators will play two games in Duesseldorf in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":503391,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5104],"tags":[4759,5,4,72,25,33540,5157,73],"class_list":{"0":"post-503390","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ottawa-senators","8":"tag-apple-news","9":"tag-hockey","10":"tag-nhl","11":"tag-ottawa","12":"tag-ottawa-senators","13":"tag-ottawa-senators-sports-hockey-team-team-nhl-api-9","14":"tag-ottawasenators","15":"tag-senators"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116228914462017871","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/503390","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=503390"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/503390\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/503391"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=503390"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=503390"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=503390"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}