Marcus Almquist looks promising. Played for HV71 in a U16 tournament in Gothenburg and was tied for the tournament lead in scoring, including 4 goals in the championship game. Many of the top end Swedish players participated.
U16 Scandinavium Cup | stats.swehockey.se
I can tell you that Almqvist already is the biggest or second biggest offensive threat on the Danish U18 squad.
The U18 team played a tournament about a month ago and as it progressed and Almqvist felt more and more comfortable with mostly two year old players, he started dominating offensively.
He sure is a small guy, but Jonas Røndbjerg was also a very tiny fellow when he played on the U18 as U16-player and all of a sudden he grew 20 centimeters so I guess Almqvist might do the same. You never know when their last growing spur occurs.
Anyway Almqvist is extremely opportunistic and challenging all the time. He put in some nice passes to go along with his intriguing dekes and soft hands. He didn't exactly do much on the defensive, so I don't know if it's in him to do that. I have only watched him in those three games.
The only offensive player looking as dangerous as Almqvist on that U18 squad was Mikkel Jensen. They played on seperate lines.
The thing is: The team was bad. They didn't show much of a passing game, so I don't know if Almqvist has a good passing game in him. The nice passes I refered to was not a part of what I would call a passing game, it was more just "here you go, I can't go further without losing the puck, so I might as well pass it now" or passes to a shot. No give-and-go's or anything like that.
Almqvist probably wasn't a sho-in for the Danish U18 from the beginning of the season, and was left out of the first tournament, but I can't see him left out for the Worlds since they have so few offensive threats. Had the 01's been one of the good Danish classes like the 87's, 89's, 93's, 95's and even 97's he probably could have been left out easily, but not with the 01's. They need offense badly!
