A note about the criteria of to be included in this countdown. The player must be 25 or younger when the season starts and he must have played less than 50 NHL games. As such, a player like Noah Philp is excluded because of his age. Players like Dylan Holloway and Philip Broberg are excluded because of the number of NHL games played.

Luca Munzenberger

Position: Left Defense
Shoots: Left
Nationality: Germany
Date of Birth: November 24, 2002
Drafted: 3rd round, 2021
Height: 6’2″ / 189 cm
Weight: 201 lbs / 91 kg
Ranking last year: 11th
Luca Munzenberger is a player that have long liked. He’s a great skating, very big defenceman who plays a hard game. However, his three years at the University of Vermont have not seen strong growth in the player. It doesn’t help that the program is a weak program playing in a very strong conference, nor did it help that their head coach was removed shortly before the season for off-ice reasons. Nevertheless, the player has not developed as expected. Indeed, in this version of Prospect Countdown, Munzenberger loses ground dropping two spots to #13.
The primary reason for his plateau is his offensive game. He went 0-3—3 in 32 games in his freshman year, and in his sophomore season, he had a very modest increase to 0-5—5 in 28 games. The hope was that his junior season would see more offence, however, Munzenberger ended up going 1-2—3 in 32 games. There is no question some of this relates to a very weak offensive program on the whole. In his three years in Vermont, the team has averaged 1.7, 1.9 and 2.5 goals per game. It is tough to increase your personal point totals if your team only manages two goals per game.
It’s not that Munzenberger does not have tools, though. Take a look at this clip from last season where Munzenberger single handedly creates a rush attempt. The only problem is he had zero support.
Here is a really impressive play by Munzenberger. Watch how he steps up to defend the blue line. Then, he is able to transition to retrieve the puck efficiently. Watch the next part closely. Munzenberger scans the ice well here and he realizes he has three options, however, he also has a forechecker coming. So he decides to take the puck down low behind the net, leaving him with multiple options. When the forechecker chooses to go with him, he makes a creative play to outlet the puck, leading to a great transition play and a goal.
That is an elite-level skill play by a very big defenceman.
Munzenberger has the tools to be more offensively involved in the game going all the way back to his World Junior days when he was running the second power-play unit. Unfortunately, Munzenberger has not been able to find this game at the collegiate level consistently. This will be Munzenberger’s last collegiate year and it will be imperative for him to use this season to enhance his offensive skillsets. There are opportunities for defenders on the left side in the Oilers prospect pipeine.
Whether Munzenberger can take advantage of the current situation is a story yet to be told.

Previous names in the countdown

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