I googled the net to see what different north american hockey writers and analyst's assessments on Viktor Arvidsson's performance in the WJC would be. He seems to have made quite an impact. Before the WJC I did similar lookups and extremely few north american writers seemed to consider him an interesting prospect or even mentioning him. Scouts obviously hardly had any different view, passing on Arvidsson at previous draft. One of the few that seemed to have spotted him this autumn was Corey Pronman at Hockey Prospectus.
But now he's getting a lot of attention and these are some of the assessments on Arvidssons performance that has been published on the net over the last few days, since WJC:
Al Daniel, featured columnist at Bleacher Report, ranks Arvidssons WJC performance 2nd to only Seth Jones, among all 2013 NHL draft prospects that starred at WJC
"Though muted in the medal round, Arvidsson perked up in the clutch in a pair of preliminary round games, effectively helping to influence Sweden’s seeding en route to a silver medal. Moments after Finland finished the deletion of a 3-0 deficit, Arvidsson’s goal and primary assist in a span of 44 seconds restored Sweden’s lead to 5-3 in the fourth-to-last minute of the second period. The Swedes did not look back after that and, in the final minute of the third period, Arvidsson buried a second strike to finalize a 7-4 victory on Dec. 31. Two nights earlier, after Sweden let Latvia hang around for almost 50 minutes, Arvidsson struck the mesh at 9:24 and 11:52 of the third to single-handedly swell up a lead to 4-1, which then morphed into a 5-1 final."
http://bleacherreport.com/articles/...red-at-the-world-junior-championships/page/10
, writer at The Examiner, gives Arvidssons WJC performance a high grade B+, which Bitely btw only gave to two swedish prospects (Lindholm being the other)
"It is funny still how teams shy away from players that are not huge even in this day and age of a skilled skating NHL game. I watched Arvidsson back in the summer and was immediately impressed with the speedy and shifty forward. Each and every play he brings high energy and skill that any NHL club could use. He found the back of the net four times in Ufa and the reason being is his accurate sniping shot he brings. He shows vision, puck pursuit, nifty hands, and quite capable of taking care of his own end as well. A player that comes with jam each game and shift. It could be his time to hear his name from the podium in June."
http://www.examiner.com/article/201...nces-at-the-world-junior-championship?cid=rss
, writer at Hockeys Future, put Arvidsson in his WJC all star team
"My last forward spot goes to Viktor Arvidsson, an undrafted Swedish winger. Arvidsson caught my eye in a big way despite his small stature. He really turned on the jets in this tournament and it allowed him to put his fantastic mitts and creativity on display. He has a good shot that he likes to use, but somewhat surprisingly, he was a competent backchecker that even saw some time on the penalty kill. He's a player that was missed by NHL scouts in 2012 and his performance assured us that they won't make the same mistake twice. He could stand to distribute the disc a little better, but other than that, he was outstanding for the Tre Kronor."
http://dhockeynews.blogspot.se/2013/01/2013-wjcs-individual-winners-and-losers.html
, staff writer at NHL.com, lists Arvidsson at spot #10 among the top draft prospect's performance at the WJC, only preceded by one other swedish prospect
" Viktor Arvidsson, LW, Sweden: In six games, Arvidsson had four goals, five points and a plus-1 rating. His 27 shots ranked second on the team behind only team captain Filip Forsberg."
Morreale also quotes NHL Director of European scouting Goran Stubb's assessment on Arvidsson:
"He loves to score, loves to win,"
"He's a small player (5-9, 172) but was a big positive surprise for the Swedes."
http://www.nhl.com/ice/news.htm?id=649204
Sidenote(1): Arvidsson is ranked at #26 among swedish skaters in the last CSS rankings (november).
http://www.nhl.com/ice/page.htm?id=84966
Sidenote(2): Arvidsson scored in tonights game, so he seem to maintain his flow. He's now logged 6 goals and 4 assists in 34 games in SEL, this season.
