Watching the Prospects

Apparently the Stanley Cup triumph of the Detroit Red Wings is still reverberating throughout the hockey world.

You may recall that the Wings won the Cup with a team loaded with Swedish talent, including captain Nicklas Lidstrom, centre Henrik Zetterberg, winger Johan Franzen, winger Mikael Samuelsson, winger Tomas Holmstrom and defenceman NIklas Kronwall. No team had ever won an NHL championship with so many Swedish-born players or a European captain, let alone a Swedish one.

Today, the NHL came out with its mid-term rankings, which are still divided into North American and European lists for reasons no one can quite explain since they all go into the same draft.

The North American version, predictably, had John Tavares at the top, while the Euro list predictably had Swedish defenceman Victor Hedman rated first.

No surprises there.

What was surprising, however, is that on the Euro list, the next seven highest rated players are also Swedes, including speedy winger Magnus Svensson Paajarvi, a star on the Swedish national junior team at the recent world junior championships and a player seen as superior to Hedman in some quarters.

That's unprecedented for one country. In all, 11 of the top 15 European prospects are Swedes, and 16 of the top 25. The top Euro goalie is also from Sweden.

It's a domination of European prospects list that's even greater than Canada's domination of the North American list, a remarkable accomplishment given that Swedish hockey had seemingly been downgraded in the minds of NHL talent hunters over the past decade. Since the Sedin twins went second and third in the 1999 draft, Swedish teenagers had been largely absent from the top 10 draft NHL draft picks every year, with only a couple of exceptions.

Last year, there were no Swedes drafted until defenceman Erik Karlsson went 15th to Ottawa - Senators fans should be happy with that one, because Karlsson looks like a beaut - and only three in the first round.

"I'm not sure what they're doing, but they're obviously doing something right," said Canadian Olympic executive director Steve Yzerman in assessing the Swedish junior team at the world juniors.

Maybe this is just a blip year for the Swedes, and certainly, there will be no shortage of those who will note that the Swedish juniors were no match for Team Canada in the world junior final. But while the Russians, Czechs and Finns seem to be less attractive in the eyes of NHL Central Scouting this year, and Switzerland and Germany have all but dropped off the radar screen altogether as far as NHL prospects, the Swedes are all the rage. Perhaps others are starting to see what the Red Wings have been seeing, and benefiting from, for years.

Comments

[Moe Green]

What you failed to mention is Sweden's population of just over 9 million. Canada's has almost four times the population. Wow. What is the difference. It would be a good idea for Canada to try to determine what the Swedes are doing right and copy it.

[ocean]

well, the name of the man doin a great job is Tommy Bousted, he is in charge of the development prog of swedish junior hockey... the revamp started couple of years back, with a plan to be at the top of the junior hockey world within 10 year... well, it took them to get there (almost) in 5 years.... look him up!

[Chris]

Yeha Moe, because Canada has such a hard time time producing top end talent we should do what the Swedes do?

You're kidding, right?

[Matt B]

@ Chris (comment #3): To be fair to Moe, I think what he meant was we could learn from the Swedes and add it to whatever we're doing in Canada. We're doing great, but learning from other countries is a good thing too. I'm sure the Swedes learned a thing or two from Hockey Canada's program of outstanding achievement in the field of excellence.

[Dean]

Down here in San Jose we have a defenceman named Douglas Murray who is both talented and tough as nails. The other night against the Canucks he got nailed by the puck in front of the Sharks net, immediately jumped up and shoved Mats Sundin off the puck (no mean feat), then limped back to the bench on one leg. By the way Douglas Murray is a Swede.

And for those morons (sorry, I should have used the term ignorant people) who think that Swedes can't fight like us "good Canadian boys", last month Murray got sucker punched by a North American player as he was taking off his visor and helmet before a fight. Murray promptly clobbered the guy and the Sharks went on to win the game.

Real hockey fans should want to see the best players, regardless of where they are from.

[Chris]

@ Matt B... first off, great Simpsons reference :)

I would agree with you, but it seems to me that Hockey Canada already made that sort of adjustment mid-90's. I'm not trying to slag the Swedish (or any other Euro) program, I'm just saying that I think fairly significant steps have been taken already to learn from European hockey, and to introduce some Euro-style skills to our style of play.

As much as the Swedes are the flavour of the month let's not forget they've lost to us at the WJC two years in a row, not one of them is in the NHL's top ten for scoring, they have exactly one elite goaltender playing in the NHL and that the ISS ranks six Canadians in their top 10 prospects to Swedens two (which is very close to being in proportion to the population difference of 32 million Canadians to 9 million Swedes).

So, while Sweden's program is producing success, no doubt about that, let's not forget that ours is producing even more.

[Chong Hum]

Wait until the 2010 Olympics. I'm a diehard Canadian but Team Sweden has a good potential line-up :

Forwards : Sundin, H. Sedin, D. Sedin, Holmstrom, Zetterberg, Samuelson, P. Berglund, N. Backstorm, Alffredson, L. Erikkson, Pahlsson, M. Naslund

Defence : Ohlund, Karlsson, Lidstrom, Kronwall, Erhoff, Hedman, Edler

Goal : Lundquist

[Vorak The Toaster]

At the world juniors, Tommy must have bowed his head in shame. Sweden's floppy goalie was an embarrassment and the team's work ethic was pathetic. Sweden needs to copy Canada, not vice-versa.

[angry sam]

First off, to say that teams will blindly go after Swedes is incorrect. What sets the Red Wings apart is getting talent regardless of origin. The fact that they are Swede-heavy is irrelevant, a post facto revelation by Damien. A good GM will look for talent, not trends.
Secondly,
Gagne-Crosby-Iginla
Marleau-Thornton-Heatley
Perry-Getzlaf-Nash
Carter-Richards-Savard

Phaneuf-Weber
Pronger-Keith
Green-Bouwmeester

Luongo

kicks butt.

[Ryan]

@ Chong Hum,

I agree, the Swedes will have a great roster for the Olympics. This is the best part of the Olympics vs the world Jr's. The pool of elite talent at that level is far bigger than any under 20 tourny for countries other than Canada. Along with Sweden, Russia, Canada, US, Czech, Finland will have good teams, and even Slovakia and the swiss have made strides. These games are far more competitve than the 15-0 games in the Jr's. The difference with Canada and the rest of the world is that we have a deep pool of talent at every level.

[Ryan]

Canada could probably enter 3 teams at any level of play and have a decent chance at gold silver and bronze.