D Elias Salomonsson - Skelleftea AIK J20, J20 Nationell (2022, 55th, WPG)
- Thread starter MMC
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theslatcher
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Has been called up to the SHL team and should debut tomorrow. First '04 to play in the SHL.
MMC
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Pavels Dog
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MMC
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Pavels Dog
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Seems like he is progressing pretty quickly ,he didn't even play J20 last season . Impressive when a prospect can quickly and effectively jump up levels
Habs76
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I’m not gonna pretend to be the authority on all things Elias Salomonsson, but it doesn’t even look like he was a big producer at the U18 level. Now PPG at U20. Crazy progression.
Preds666
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- Feb 27, 2002
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He was arguably the best defenseman with the Swedish U16 team last season (was injured during the first part of the season, if I recall correctly) and now he is without a doubt the top 04 player in the country. Probably not very close, although all rankings I've seen have several Swedish forwards ahead of Salomonsson.. which is mind-boggling. Seen a few games during the fall where he has been absolutely dominant at U20 level.
Very complete defenseman. Moves well, exceptional hockey sense, great offensive skills (shot, passing game) pretty good size as well. I wouldn't be surprised if we'll see Dahlin level of hype next season when he, at the age of 17, will be a full-time regular at SHL level. Expect him to make the U20 World Juniors next season as well.
Pavel Buchnevich
Drury and Laviolette Must Go
This is why I always say that it's stupid to be too sure about draft spots before we are aware of all the main players from a given draft. This guy was relatively unheralded because he's Swedish and Swedish players are always unheralded, he had some injuries that probably didn't help, having a lot of the season cancelled didn't help either, and now he's burst onto the scene and looks like one of the bigger names for his draft. I know next to nothing about him, but there are going to be guys like this that I can assure you will be very early picks in 2022. It's always like that.
Sounds promising. Not sure about the Dahlin hype as the top of the 22 draft is looking really great but I’ve never seen this kid play so I can’t say much on anything about him. If he did what Dahlin did and goes 1st in that draft as a D man then he’d definitely would be a no doubt exceptional player but we should probably pump the breaks a bit.
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VictorLustig
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- Feb 8, 2012
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He's good for his age. Big, physically ahead of his peers, skates very well. Not so sure I've seen the really high end stuff from him but my viewings are limited.
Preds666
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- Feb 27, 2002
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Sorry, this was from a Swedish media perspective. Definitely not the type of "consensus #1 overall" hype Dahlin received world wide. Heck, even Dahlin would not receive that kind of hype in 2022 with the competition he would be up against
Habs76
Registered User
That's crazy, I hope you're right. Adding a Dahlin-level defense prospect to the top of the 2022 draft to the big three centers, McGroarty, Nemec, Fleming, Casey, Yurov, Miroshnichenko, etc. would be beautiful.
MMC
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I'm not at all trying to say I use this as a means to actually rate players, but I often look at eliteprospects draftcenter for every upcoming draft year, which is where they list the most notable players, and then look up their HF threads. If I see a player who doesn't have an HF thread, I like to make them to hear people's thoughts. That's how I find out about guys like Salomonsson, lol, glad to hear he's standing out.
I think that's fair - EP is certainly not a bible of scouting but it appears they have taken steps to go beyond simply being a data service into more of a full-fledged scouting source. I think guys listed under their "top prospects" listings for future drafts are certainly worth asking about if they don't already have threads here (and I think many if not most do). They don't put a ton of young players in that category so it's not like asking about them is spamming this forum with every random Finnish prospect that has a multi-point game in an U18 league (wink...just teasing some of our more exuberant Finnish-based posters...lol).
Asking anybody to do a "ranking" for some draft 2 or 3 years from now is pretty nuts but starting to form some groups of high-level prospects for their age range seems perfectly reasonable to me. Certainly sounds like Salomonsson is rocketing into the upper tiers of his age range.
Since we’re on the topic of top EP prospects I was wondering if anyone in here knows anything about the Swedish D-Man Theo Lindstein? I believe MMC also did a thread on him too but there aren’t many replies yet. He is the only D-man That EP has listed currently as a top prospect for 2023.
NHL Dude 120
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Antiillafire
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This kid really doesn’t impress me much. I’d say he’s late first round material right now. Looked well behind other 2004 born defenseman at U18 tournament. Jiricek on a weak Czech team looked 10x better than him.
Pavel Buchnevich
Drury and Laviolette Must Go
I liked what I saw. He was playing a smaller role. You can’t fault him for that.
FWF
Cheers
Seems very solid, strong on his feet and has some finesse for a kid of his size. Looks to me like he'll be one of those "high-floor/low-ceiling" players like a Svozil or something. Nothing that screams top-5/10 to me, but in that mid-range 10-20. Nothing wrong with a slick-skating, strong, and right-handed two-way defenceman.
Hockeyfrilla
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AMScouting
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- May 23, 2021
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