Oilers prospect Luca Münzenberger signs contract with DEL’s Kölner Haie

Luca Münzenberger is heading home.

The Edmonton Oilers’ prospect signed a contract with the DEL’s Kölner Haie for the 2025-26 season, the club announced Friday.

Drafted by the Oilers in the third round of the 2021 draft, Münzenberger was looked at as a bit of a reach at the time, as the only outlet that had him ranked was McKeen’s, who had him ranked 214th — a far cry from the 90th overall spot the team selected him.

Part of that was because he played in very limited games in his draft year. He played six games for Kölner Haie’s u20 team, where he scored a goal and three points in six games, and in five games at the World Juniors.

Committed to the University of Vermont, where he would play four years, Münzenberger took very limited steps forward over his tenure there, scoring six goals and 23 points in 123 games. Still, he came in as Oilersnation’s 13th-ranked prospect last summer.

Münzenberger 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, Münzenberger has not been able to find this game at the collegiate level consistently. This will be Münzenberger’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 pipeline. –

The Oilers hold his NHL signing rights until August 15th, and according to The Athletic’s Daniel Nugent-Bowman, all signs point to that not being the case. Nugent-Bowman reported Friday that the organziation considered signing Münzenberger to an AHL contract as they did with Vincent Desharnais when he wrapped his NCAA career, but he doesn’t “think their interest got much further than that.”

Münzenberger is another failed draft pick from Ken Holland and Tyler Wright’s tenure in Edmonton. The only prospects that they drafted between the 2019 and 2022 drafts who have played NHL games are Dylan Holloway and Philp Broberg — two players they lost to the St. Louis Blues — and all signs point to there being no other players from those drafts who will impact the NHL roster down the line in Edmonton.