Prospect Info: 60th Overall, Albert Johansson, LD

[Unfriendly Ghost]

Maybe he goes to the AHL

I'd be really surprised. I think he needs another year in the SHL. He was able to play at that level, but his offense didn't really get a chance to show itself. It picked up at the very end of the season, though.

 

[lhsgolf19]

This kid has a chance to be a Stud

I like Tuomisto but I feel Albert’s upside is greater... Not bad for 2 2019 2nd Round Picks

 

[Konnan511]

Get him to the US and load him up on McDonalds. Boy needs to add weight to that frame.

Is Lindstrom up for good? If not, pair these two up and let them have some fun in the AHL.

 

[The Zetterberg Era]

I would keep him in Sweden for one more year, but happy they have signed him. I really like his upside, his skating is elite in my viewings.

 

[Lil Bert]

Seems like we've been hitting our second round picks lately. NHL ready very quick. Not saying that Johansson is, but Hronek, Smith, Lindstrom all stepped in really fast and now we have two more exciting D-prospects from 2019.

 

[FabricDetails]

Maybe he goes to the AHL

Has the whole "Swedes (or perhaps any player that didn't grow up in NA) don't want to play in the AHL" suspicion changed at all the past few years?

 

[newfy]

Has the whole "Swedes (or perhaps any player that didn't grow up in NA) don't want to play in the AHL" suspicion changed at all the past few years?

That hasnt been a thing since Dick Axelsson and Johan Ryno

 

[MBH]

That hasnt been a thing since Dick Axelsson and Johan Ryno

I remember it used with Jarnkrok/Backman.

 

[OgeeOgelthorpe]

Very happy to see that Johansson is signed and I'm really hoping he comes over to NA next season. The kid looks like a stud.

I remember it used with Jarnkrok/Backman.

I asked this question in another thread, but what happened to Johan Ryno, Dick Axelsson and Backman? All of them went to GR for a brief period then went running for the hills.

 

[MBH]

Very happy to see that Johansson is signed and I'm really hoping he comes over to NA next season. The kid looks like a stud.



I asked this question in another thread, but what happened to Johan Ryno, Dick Axelsson and Backman? All of them went to GR for a brief period then went running for the hills.

Ryno and Axelsson didn't last the season, right?

Regarding Jarnkrok - there was some talk he was homesick or not happy with something in Grand Rapids and that he was considering going back.
When Holland made the stupid Legwand trade, fans trotted out the "we might have lost Jarnkrok for nothing" line.

I can't remember how it all happened with Backman. but i do remember that a lot of people had him higher than XO, Sproul and Marchenko - defensemen from the same draft.
And then when he got to Grand Rapids he couldn't stay in the lineup and he went back to Sweden. He got traded to Dallas in the Cole deal and managed to come back to North America that season.

One reason i cringe when I see people doing draft apps and trading down so they have 25 draft picks is because prospects need opportunity.
You can't send 6 defensemen to Grand Rapids at once and develop them very easily.
We had Jensen, Sproul, Marchenko, Ouellet, and Backman there - and they still had Paetsch, Evans, Lashoff and other defense there.

Interesting to note that Blashill was the coach when both Jarnkrok and Backman weren't happy in GR.

 

[Winger98]

Ryno and Axelsson didn't last the season, right?

Regarding Jarnkrok - there was some talk he was homesick or not happy with something in Grand Rapids and that he was considering going back.
When Holland made the stupid Legwand trade, fans trotted out the "we might have lost Jarnkrok for nothing" line.

I can't remember how it all happened with Backman. but i do remember that a lot of people had him higher than XO, Sproul and Marchenko - defensemen from the same draft.
And then when he got to Grand Rapids he couldn't stay in the lineup and he went back to Sweden. He got traded to Dallas in the Cole deal and managed to come back to North America that season.

One reason i cringe when I see people doing draft apps and trading down so they have 25 draft picks is because prospects need opportunity.
You can't send 6 defensemen to Grand Rapids at once and develop them very easily.
We had Jensen, Sproul, Marchenko, Ouellet, and Backman there - and they still had Paetsch, Evans, Lashoff and other defense there.

Interesting to note that Blashill was the coach when both Jarnkrok and Backman weren't happy in GR.

I'm not sure Ryno or Axelsson played twenty games. Just looked it up, Ryno played twelve but had 7 points. Axelsson played 17 and had 5 points. I thought they were friends and Axelsson never wanted to be in GR. When he packed up, Ryno left with him. Really wonder if Ryno would have developed differently if Axelsson hadn't been a part of that picture.

With Jarnkrok, I thought opportunity was starting to play a big part in his unhappiness here. His last year here he was putting up pretty good numbers in GR. The Wings were being killed with injuries and instead of calling him up, they called up Sheahan, despite Jarnkrok outproducing him in GR and playing a bigger role down there. It looked good at the time, because Sheahan went off a bit in Detroit. But it also made Jarnkrok go, WTF?

Didn't help when Babcock decided to then bury Legwand on the fourth line for god knows what reason. I think there really is something to Babcock killing NHL careers.

Agree about having too many playes for too few spots in GR, too. Part of why I was gung-ho for giving guys like Sproul and Marchenko quicker looks in the NHL was that it would have thinned the ranks in GR. Instead, Holland just kept stashing guys down there. I don't think it did anyone any favors.

I'm curious if it would be legal for an NHL team to have multiple AHL affiliates. The Wings can spend only so much on the NHL team as it is. Maybe having another affiliate to spread the prospects into wouldn't be a bad thing.

 

[FabricDetails]

That hasnt been a thing since Dick Axelsson and Johan Ryno

I remember it used with Jarnkrok/Backman.

I remember Backman for sure. He only lasted for 18 games before he went back to Sweden. In hindsight, he simply wasn't that productive in NA ( Red Wings try to settle prospect Mattias Backman's frustration over lack of playing time ).

Jarnrkok - I don't remember him being all that bothered by playing in the AHL. He put up some pretty good numbers. But it wouldn't surprise me if he told his agent "No more than 1-1.5 years" because he (I think) was good enough to demand that.

 

[Gniwder]

I'm curious if it would be legal for an NHL team to have multiple AHL affiliates. The Wings can spend only so much on the NHL team as it is. Maybe having another affiliate to spread the prospects into wouldn't be a bad thing.

Bettman wants a 1 to 1 relationship between NHL teams and AHL affiliates, he's managed to accomplish his goal, so I don't see any way he would backtrack on that. Also, the Wings won't continuously have enough prospects to fill 2 AHL teams. Plus it would make more sense to have GR not sign veterans instead, like for example Domink Shine. Or the Wings can get rid of guys that they have no long terms plans for, like Hicketts.

If there's not enough room in GR, the normal course of action is to loan players to other leagues like the SHL. Players can also be loaned to other AHL teams.

The best short term scenario is to trade with Seattle, since they will need to fill their AHL team. Seattle should have a bunch of 2nd and 3rd pair D from the expansion draft, so they will be an ideal trading partner.

The AHL won't play unless they can fill seats (no national TV contract), so short term the virus will have an impact on how propects are managed as well.

 

[The Zetterberg Era]

I'm curious if it would be legal for an NHL team to have multiple AHL affiliates. The Wings can spend only so much on the NHL team as it is. Maybe having another affiliate to spread the prospects into wouldn't be a bad thing.

Realistically the 50 contract rule makes that pretty hard anyway.

 

[OgeeOgelthorpe]

Ryno and Axelsson didn't last the season, right?

Regarding Jarnkrok - there was some talk he was homesick or not happy with something in Grand Rapids and that he was considering going back.
When Holland made the stupid Legwand trade, fans trotted out the "we might have lost Jarnkrok for nothing" line.

I can't remember how it all happened with Backman. but i do remember that a lot of people had him higher than XO, Sproul and Marchenko - defensemen from the same draft.
And then when he got to Grand Rapids he couldn't stay in the lineup and he went back to Sweden. He got traded to Dallas in the Cole deal and managed to come back to North America that season.

One reason i cringe when I see people doing draft apps and trading down so they have 25 draft picks is because prospects need opportunity.
You can't send 6 defensemen to Grand Rapids at once and develop them very easily.
We had Jensen, Sproul, Marchenko, Ouellet, and Backman there - and they still had Paetsch, Evans, Lashoff and other defense there.

Interesting to note that Blashill was the coach when both Jarnkrok and Backman weren't happy in GR.

This may be pure speculation on my part, but maybe there's something cultural about the AHL that European players don't like? Lias Andersson made veiled comments about not liking what he was seeing when he returned to Sweden this year, and Puljujarvi was miserable in Bakersfield (But then again, so is anyone living in Bakersfield). Is it that there is still a role for goons in the AHL? The travel? The good old boy's hockey network?

In regards to Detroit, Axelsson and Ryno left the organization and went back to Sweden to become top tier players in the SHL after very short tenures in the AHL. Jarnkrok was unhappy, and so was Backman. I didn't really follow Grand Rapids closely until about 2 years ago so I'm not sure who was managing it or what the coaching style was while there, but I can't help myself from wondering how poor they managed those assets.
Axelsson and Ryno have had great SHL careers and I can't help but wonder if they could have been the internal replacements we needed for Holmstrom and Samuelsson. Jarnkrok has been a very good depth player for Nashville and would have been useful in replacing Filpulla in 2013 (Anyone would have been better than Weiss)

 

[The Zetterberg Era]

This may be pure speculation on my part, but maybe there's something cultural about the AHL that European players don't like? Lias Andersson made veiled comments about not liking what he was seeing when he returned to Sweden this year, and Puljujarvi was miserable in Bakersfield (But then again, so is anyone living in Bakersfield). Is it that there is still a role for goons in the AHL? The travel? The good old boy's hockey network?

In regards to Detroit, Axelsson and Ryno left the organization and went back to Sweden to become top tier players in the SHL after very short tenures in the AHL. Jarnkrok was unhappy, and so was Backman. I didn't really follow Grand Rapids closely until about 2 years ago so I'm not sure who was managing it or what the coaching style was while there, but I can't help myself from wondering how poor they managed those assets.
Axelsson and Ryno have had great SHL careers and I can't help but wonder if they could have been the internal replacements we needed for Holmstrom and Samuelsson. Jarnkrok has been a very good depth player for Nashville and would have been useful in replacing Filpulla in 2013 (Anyone would have been better than Weiss)

This is a big one from the guys I talk to. One of the major reasons a couple buddies I have that are from NA that weren't quite good enough to make the NHL went to Europe. Sometimes the salaries can be pretty different too. I don't think it helps that you spend your first three weeks of a season living in NHL conditions. You are flying around in training camp on Red Bird 1 and what not. I think it is pretty jarring on top of you're living by yourself in a city and area that is culturally quite different. The Wings have an advantage in terms of Grand Rapids is a pretty nice area to be an AHL guy in, the Nashville guys would always say that to me in Milwaukee in terms of man imagine if we were with the Blues in Peoria (since relegated to a different league) so in that sense it is luck of the draw.

You go to and from games by bus a lot. They fly commercial when they aren't on those longer bus trips. Now most of the NA guys that played junior or college are pretty used to that. USA and Canada are humongous in terms of geography, it is an adjustment. I don't think it is a coincidence you rarely hear the travel talked about by the Russian guys that do agree to come over and go up through the AHL.

Some of these guys aren't going to work out for a variety of reasons. On that list by the time they were leaving only Ryno really bothered me a ton as I felt like he had a ton to work with in North America. I was upset about Jarnkrok but he wound up in Milwaukee with some of the guys I was friends with and I became less upset once they started talking about him pretty quickly. I think he has been a fine pro. Backman and Axelsson weren't good enough skaters in my opinion. I think the major difference here is they fizzled and have an option to leave or in Jarnkrok's case was dealt after becoming a malcontent and the team unloading him before he could walk for nothing.

Grigorenko, Ryno and the late Stefan Liv were the only three I can remember being really rattled about. We have seen NA guys fail at a similar clip for sure. I will never forget how quickly I soured on Sproul after the first couple of times I saw him in person, he actually was they way people describe Brendan Smith on this board. I have never really seen a more gifted toolset with absolutely no hockey brain attached to it, if he was Swedish and went home we would talk about him like some lost project though is a part of the point in my opinion. Some of these guys had pretty long odds of really making it, especially into the kind of players we were hoping for.

I really thought Jarnkrok would be a much better PP guy.

 

[Winger98]

Bettman wants a 1 to 1 relationship between NHL teams and AHL affiliates, he's managed to accomplish his goal, so I don't see any way he would backtrack on that. Also, the Wings won't continuously have enough prospects to fill 2 AHL teams. Plus it would make more sense to have GR not sign veterans instead, like for example Domink Shine. Or the Wings can get rid of guys that they have no long terms plans for, like Hicketts.

If there's not enough room in GR, the normal course of action is to loan players to other leagues like the SHL. Players can also be loaned to other AHL teams.

The best short term scenario is to trade with Seattle, since they will need to fill their AHL team. Seattle should have a bunch of 2nd and 3rd pair D from the expansion draft, so they will be an ideal trading partner.

The AHL won't play unless they can fill seats (no national TV contract), so short term the virus will have an impact on how propects are managed as well.

I was thinking the goal wouldn't be to "fill" two teams, but to have access to roster spots to virtually guarantee guys quality playing time. To go with the example already mentioned when the Wings were trying to find playing time in GR for XO, Sproul, Backman, and Marchenko, if the Wings had a second team, then half of them could have went over there. Let the AHL teams fill out the rest of their lineups as they see fit.

I wasn't really thinking of it as a short-term thing, but maybe a way to change development, putting an emphasis on moving guys aggressively into the AHL, giving them big minutes, and what that could look like - especially if the Wings would start trying to do it with the bulk of their prospects and trying to find playing time for them.

Part of me knows it's likely a bad idea, but I wanted to throw it out there.

 

[Henkka]

I was thinking the goal wouldn't be to "fill" two teams, but to have access to roster spots to virtually guarantee guys quality playing time. To go with the example already mentioned when the Wings were trying to find playing time in GR for XO, Sproul, Backman, and Marchenko, if the Wings had a second team, then half of them could have went over there. Let the AHL teams fill out the rest of their lineups as they see fit.

I wasn't really thinking of it as a short-term thing, but maybe a way to change development, putting an emphasis on moving guys aggressively into the AHL, giving them big minutes, and what that could look like - especially if the Wings would start trying to do it with the bulk of their prospects and trying to find playing time for them.

Part of me knows it's likely a bad idea, but I wanted to throw it out there.

You have the right idea, but just completed in a different way.

I think the way (already on making) is just to draft more from Europe (ouside from canadian junior rules), so you can loan guys there. Finnish league is having these kids more and more. Even foreign players are joining now, like young czechs and slovaks mostly. Sweden is a very good place too. also interesting, how Germany evolves. They have the money to push on facilities, which is lacking from former Czechoslovakia countries and Russia is still a mess.

At least our drafted goalies have somekind of clearer sepatation plan on the air, I can see it. There is a spot in Sweden (Färjestad), whose goalie coach is Wings' European goalie scout. And they did "send" Brättström to Finland, to play at KooKoo, where is Finnish National team goalie coach. I see these moves as "Yzerplan", separating the talent in good development environments, when you can't guarantee spot for all at Grand Rapids. Griffins is main place, but especially for goalies, there's only one starter position.

I wonder if they start using this plan more also for forwards or defencemen.

 

[Rzombo4 prez]

The SHL is the right home for him, especially with all of the uncertainty surrounding the AHL season. Even if the AHL is up and running come December, I would leave him in Sweden for another year.

 

[Killerjas]

There is a spot in Sweden (Färjestad), whose goalie coach is Wings' European goalie scout. And they did "send" Brättström to Finland, to play at KooKoo, where is Finnish National team goalie coach. I see these moves as "Yzerplan", separating the talent in good development environments, when you can't guarantee spot for all at Grand Rapids...

Eliasson is joining Farjestad but there is some tough competition. Wont be surprised if he gets loaned out again to an Allsvenskan team.

 

[Gniwder]

The SHL is the right home for him, especially with all of the uncertainty surrounding the AHL season. Even if the AHL is up and running come December, I would leave him in Sweden for another year.

If the Wings don't sign a free agent there's a LD spot open. I would prefer to sign a vet to a short term contract, but the possibility is there.

So far we have:
Nemeth - Hronek
DDK - Seider
? - Lindstrom/Bowey/Biega

He would have to beat out Cholo and McIsaac for the spot though.

 

[ChadS]

Eliasson is joining Farjestad but there is some tough competition. Wont be surprised if he gets loaned out again to an Allsvenskan team.

They actually already said that this is the plan for him in 20-21, to get to play as much as possible. Not surprised because he's obviously not yet ready for a significant role in the SHL.

As for Johansson, I think we can expect a big year coming for him. Already showed lots of flashes last year but wasn't quite ready yet for a full season of pro hockey.

 

[MrKriben]

You guys from NA got to remember that the social differances is the main thing for these guys that come over. Especially since they keep getting signed at a really early age.
Take a guy like Albert for example, he's never even had his own appartment in his hometown, own country, he's only played for the team where he grew up watching his dad playing, his dad being the teamcaptain. Hockywise I doubt he would have any problems or questions of going over to the NA for this next season but he sure do have alot of growing up before the first appartment he gets is in Grand Rapids on his own without his whole support system.

A guy like Elias Peterson has his mother living with him to provide the support system he needs off ice.

Ryno and Axelsson was/is VERY immature players who thinks their talents could bring them all the way. I don't think they were willing to do the work mentally wise.

 

[The Zetterberg Era]

Do we have any news on him growing a little? Remember at the time of the draft much like Cholowski the Wings expected him to grow an inch or two still.

 

[FabricDetails]

Please enlighten me as I only have crude knowledge of how the tier system works in Sweden.

For a newly drafted prospect that develops in Sweden for ~three years, what would we hope for as far as league progression?

For instance, assuming the team is in the SHL:

Year 1 after being drafted - J20/SHL
Year 2 - SHL
Year 3 - SHL - I'm inclined to think that this player is quite battle tested.

Whereas someone who was more along the lines of:

Year 1 - J20
Year 2 - J20
Year 3 - SHL - A normal, but promising progression?