Matt Hussey voted European Player of the Month of January

07 Feb 2012 | eurohockey.com

Straubing Tigers attacker Matt Hussey had scored five goals and earned nine assists in nine DEL games in January 2012. At the moment the American is the best goal scorer in the league with 22 goals in only 32 games. These statistics were reason enough for the readers of eurohockey.com to make him European Player of the Month.

Who is Matt Hussey?

Born in New Haven, Connecticut, Hussey started his career playing for the High School teams Wayzata High and Avon Old Farms between 1996 and 1998. After that he attended the University of Wisconsin where he earned 84 points in 149 NCAA games from 1998 to 2002. In the NHL Entry Draft 1998 he had been drafted by the Pittsburgh Penguins for whose franchise he played four years long. In 16 NHL games for Pittsburgh he get two goals and two assists but for the majority of his time with the Pens he stayed at their farmteam Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins in the AHL. In the 2006-2007 season he played another five NHL games - this time for the Detroit Red Wings but again the AHL was the place where he had to be for almost the whole year and did so with the Grand Rapids Griffins. The next season he started with the Lake Erie Monsters of the AHL but finished it at Jokerit of the Finish SM-liiga and stayed in Europe ever since. He decided to go to Germany where he played one year for Straubing and two for Ingolstadt.

Late in October 2011 the Center returned to the Tigers where he became a key player playing in a line together with Karl Stewart and Rene Röthke. In 182 DEL matches he has earned 153 points so far which is an impressive point average of 0.84 per game.

Past winners
December 2011 - Tommy Goebel
November 2011 - Robert Kristan
October 2011 - Jakub Petružálek
September 2011 - Tomas Zaborsky
April/May 2011- André Rankel
March 2011 - Martin Ruzicka
February 2011 - Petri Vehanen
January 2011 - Antti Pihlström
December 2010 - Jakub Stepanek