Who was more important to european hockey: Lidström or Salming?

[Phil McKraken]

'No one' really cares about Lidström in Sweden. If you're into hockey you know who he is, but I would barely call him a celebrity. Here it's Forsberg, Sundin and Lundqvist, and Salming from the old days, and then everyone else far below.

 

[93gilmour93]

Borje helped open the door to have players like Lidstrom to come into the league. Gotta go with Salming

 

[Yozhik v tumane]

Poor Thommie Bergman has been all forgotten these days. I even read articles saying Salming was first swede in NHL. Bergman was not only first regular player but also a good d-man and just as tough as Salming. We kids when playing street
hockey pretended to be him just as much Salming. Bergman paved the way more than he gets credit for.

Poor Juha Widing has been all but forgotten these days. Had 200+ games in the NHL before Bergman made his debut.

 

[AvroArrow]

Who was the better player or more important ? Lidstrom was by far the better player. Salming coming into the league earlier more important for Europeans coming over to play.

 

[mattihp]

Poor Juha Widing has been all but forgotten these days. Had 200+ games in the NHL before Bergman made his debut.

His personality rubbed swedes the wrong way IIRC

 

[Yozhik v tumane]

His personality rubbed swedes the wrong way IIRC

Never heard of this. He was likely rather Americanized, and as far as I’m aware spent his entire adult life in America. The thing with Widing was that he was virtually unknown to the Swedish public and seemingly appeared out of nowhere as one of the Swedish pros at the 1976 Canada Cup. There’s a distinction between the pioneering roles of Widing and guys like Bergman and Salming in that the latter two were adults who’d spent time in the Swedish top-flight when they tried North America, whereas Widing’s family emigrated when he was 16, with his route to the NHL being more akin to Canadian kids’. With that being said, Widing’s role in the history of Europeans in the NHL should not be confused with the likes of Swedish born Canadians like Gus Forslund who never played hockey in Sweden, as most of Widing’s youth career was spent in Sweden (even appearing in the inaugural TV-Pucken at 15, per Wikipedia).

Furthermore, Widing tends to be forgotten due to being a star for the obscure and lowly early 70s Kings and because of having been born in Finland (many of those who do remember him seem surprised of learning “Whitey” wasn’t a Finnish national: if you looked at the NHL stats for Swedish players in those years you’d miss him as he used to be listed as Finnish, and I think Finns are aware Hagman was their trailblazer). Lastly, Widing died young, so we don’t remember him from his life post-career.

At any rate, yes, Bergman deserves more recognition for an early and successful transition to North American/NHL hockey. As I think @johan f noted, Bergman was similarly to Salming quite a tough cookie who seems to have endured his fair share of adversity. Hockeyfights tallies nine fights involving Bergman, including bouts with Bobby Clarke, Harold Snepsts, Steve Durbano and Dave “The Hammer” Schultz.

I think however that it’s very understandable why Salming gets most of the credit among the pioneers, seeing as he was voted an all-star for six consecutive years and was a star player in the biggest hockey market in the world, and stayed in the league much longer than all other early Europeans.