German minor leaguer scores spinning, deking goal of the year candidate

EHC Klostersee’s Raphael Kaefer scored one of the most outstanding goals of 2014-15. While shorthanded, Kaefer cut across the blueline, spun between two defenders, deked the goaltender and slid the puck into a yawning net for a surefire goal of the year candidate.

What elevates a goal from a normal, run of the mill tally to goal of the year candidacy? Well, it helps if the goal scorer has to beat a few defenders, uses a skillful move or two and dekes out the goaltender before tucking the puck home.

Germany’s Raphael Kaefer checked off all of those boxes on Sunday. Not only does Kaefer make his way up the entire ice, he does so by cutting into the middle, spinning back in the opposite direction, and putting a forehand-backhand move on the goaltender that gives him the entire net to put the puck into.

Oh, and the whole sequence came while Kaefer’s team, EHC Klostersee, was shorthanded.

[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vOAHRFji3g[/embed]

Kaefer’s goal was his 22nd of the season and his 41st point in 31 games in the German third division.

The 20-year-old forward has played in Germany’s minor league system for the last five seasons, and it doesn’t seem likely he’ll ever move up. An alternate captain for the German U18 squad in 2011-12, Kaefer was not drafted. In 159 games in Germany’s third division, he has scored 55 goals and registered 124 points.