Nicolas Caprivi - Biography

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Nicolas Caprivi - Biography
 

The hockey career of Nicolas Caprivi began just like so many others, on a pond, a few minutes from his parent’s house and with an old pair of skates that his brother had grown out of. “They were way too big for me and for the first few months my feet hurt every time because they just didn’t fit properly, but I still wanted to hit the ice at every chance I got”, they young Canadian Center who just turned eighteen describes. His talent and his enthusiasm already showed at an early age, but he wasn’t the first hockey crazy boy to be born into his family. When he just started playing the game his two older brothers were already trying to work their way into one of the major Canadian junior leagues, and later on his younger sister regularly joined her siblings on the ice as well. “We just are a hockey crazy family”, Nicolas told us, “and our parents didn’t put any pressure on us either, we all decided by ourselves that we wanted to try this game and play it with our friends as much as possible, after school, on the weekends and basically whenever we some free time and when it was cold enough.”  

 

It all started with Nicolas’ father Paul, who was a hockey player himself but never made it to one of the higher level leagues like the VHL or NHL. He spent two season in the AHL and a couple of more in the CHL, but decided to retire in his late 20s to be closer to his family and get a more steady job to be able to support them better. “My dad actually had a few offers from European teams that would have allowed him to make some better money than he did in the lower level leagues here”, Nicolas recalls. “He could have gone to Austria I think, Italy, France, maybe a second division team from Sweden, but he decided to turn all these offers down to keep this family together. There was only one kind of offer that he might have considered taking, but it was an offer that never came: An offer from the DEL, the top-tier German league.”

 

 

 

The Caprivi’s are of German heritage and both Nicolas and their family still take pride in their German heritage. Even though the family has lived in North America since the end of the 19^th century, all the children still grow up bilingual and Nicolas has also visited Germany numerous times. “I think I have a pretty thick accent”, he told us with a laugh when we asked him about how good his German actually was, “but I think grammatically it’s pretty good and people over there usually are able to understand me. I think going to a team in Germany would have been the only hockey-option that would have been enticing enough for my father to leave Canada, but that opportunity never presented itself so we just visit their as tourists occasionally.” Nicolas has visited Berlin, Frankfurt, the Alps and various places in Eastern Germany, where his family used to live before they came to North America in the late 1800s. The family was actually of noble descent, but the “von Caprivi”s dropped the “von” when they arrived in the new world. “I love going there, and breathe all the history the country has to offer and visit the places where my ancestors used to live. It is almost as much of a home to me by now as Canada, but in my heart I’m a Kitchener boy so I have no plans of leaving, unless it is my hockey career that carries me someplace else.”

 

A lot of years have passed since Nicolas stepped onto the ice for the first time and his brothers are already playing in the OHL and the AHL, but the now 18-year old has decided to take a different path. After multiple seasons in the OJHL he is currently trying out for the Ottawa Lynx of the VHLM after already having a short stint with the Turku Outlaws. Nicolas is expected to enter the VHLM Dispersal Draft this off-season, where he could be picked if the first two rounds if his development stays on track. We will talk some more about this and his career so far in our rookie profile, but for now we leave you with a quick scouting report and a look at Nicolas Caprivi’s strengths and weaknesses…

 

Strengths

 

+ Skating

One of Nicolas’ biggest assets is his skating. He is a very smooth skater with a quick and elegant stride that almost looks effortless at times. He doesn’t have the explosiveness that some other high quality skaters exhibit, but that could very well come with time. His technique is already flawless, now it all comes down to working on the details and adding more leg strength without losing agility.

 

+ Vision

Everyone who sees Nicolas on the ice will pretty soon realize that he is a playmaker first and foremost. He loves to distribute the puck, feed his teammates with deadly passes and then celebrate the goals with them. Nicolas is one of the most unselfish players you will find, he is not on to hold onto the puck for too long, but instead is always looking for someone in a better position to give it to.

 

+ Versatility

Nicolas might be playing as a Defenseman at the moment, but he originally started his career as a Center and still hasn’t ruled out returning to that position, depending on how the depth-chart of his eventual VHL-team will look. He can play on pretty much every position except as a goalie and this versatility is a real asset for both him and his team. On the ice Nicolas is a pretty well-rounded player as well, aside from his skating and passing game he also is very solid in his own end, so he can be equally effective at both ends of the ice. A player that can be used in all situations, Nicolas should be an option for both the power play and the penalty kill and is also someone you can count on both when you are trying to hold a lead, or have to get a goal late in the game.

 

 

Weaknesses

 

- Shot & One-On-One Skills

Do you remember how much we praised Nicolas’ vision and his playmaking ability earlier in this article. Well he better be a great playmaker because right now, the other elements of his offensive games are rather underdeveloped. You could even go as far as saying that at this point in his career, Nicolas is a pretty one-dimensional player in the offensive zone whose only asset is his passing. Both his shooting and his ability to beat his opponents through stick handling are nothing to write home about and some of his opponents in the VHLM have already picked up on that. While Nicolas was often pressured by multiple opposing players at the start of his junior career, which in turn lead to other player being open that he could promptly find with his passes, opponents have now started to change their approach and give him a little more room. They usually sit back, block all the passing lanes and let him handle the puck himself and quite a few times now it became apparent that Nicolas didn’t know what to do with the puck, if he couldn’t just send a pass to one of his teammates, leading to quite a few failed stick-handling attempts and low-percentage passes that got picked off. If he doesn’t add more variety to his offensive game, Nicolas could end up being a one-trick pony at a higher level that is rather easy to read for opposing Defensemen.

 

- Physical Game

While there is a decent change that Nicolas will develop a better rounded offensive game over time, there is another aspect to his game that is less likely to change: he just isn’t a physical player at all. Nicolas usually shies away from contact and while this wasn’t much of a problem when he was still a Forward, it is starting to become an issue now that he is playing on the back end. He is pretty good at using his stick in defensive situation, but his hesitancy to initiate contact has led to some stronger forwards being able to take advantage and power through him. Nicolas also isn’t very strong on at this point in his career and while his vision allows him to distribute it pretty well even when under pressure, he can’t hold onto it for long if his options are limited.

 

- Flair

Will Nicolas ever be a gamechanger, who is able to carry a team with his skill? He certainly had that ability as a midget player, but will it translate to higher levels? Right now it doesn’t look like it, Nicolas is a good solid player with a team-first mentality, but he seems to be lacking that wow-factor. He is good at all the little things that are so important in hockey, but if he ever wants to make it in the VHL this alone won’t do.

Edited September 6, 2014 by RomanesEuntDomus

[Da Trifecta 1,902]

Overview: 3/3 Childhood: check, High School: check, College: check Great overview of your player

Grammar: 2/2 Nothing worth docking

Presentation: 1/1 

Pros: 2/2 Yup

Cons: 2/2 Yes

 

Final: 10/10