cheerupmurray
Registered User
I thought it would be fun to look at each countries prospect pool like you usually do for every NHL-team. (post states or provinces prospect pool if you like) Lets say only players with less than 25 NHL-games counts that is 25 years old or below.
Sweden
Goalies: A pretty strong group. Traditionally Sweden have never been very good at developing goalies, but there will be quite a few swedes in AHL next year and some will serve as backups in NHL. Theres a lot of goalie prospects with size like Magnus Hellberg, Lindbäck and Anders Nilsson. The recent sucess in developing goalies probably have a lot to with the introduction of goalie coaches in swedish clubs.
Top-5 Anders Lindbäck, Robin Lehner, Jacob Markström, Jhonas Enroth, Eddie Läck.
D-men:
Even with Erik Karlson and Victor Hedman and OEL graduating theres some interesting d-men left in the pool. It will be fun to see how the three Skellefteå d-men will do. Tim Erixon is a pretty solid prospect and Adam Larsson needs no introduction. It's hard to tell how David Rundblad will translate his game but he could be a impact player in the future. So theres d-men with a nice offensive upside and also a couple of shutdown d-men prospects with a mean streak, which isn't a common profile for a swedish d-man. Patrik Nemeth is a good example of that. Most of the good swedish d-prospects is born 1990 or later, theres not a lot of promising guys 21-25 years old.
Top-5: Adam Larsson, David Rundblad, Tim Erixon, Jonas Brodin, Mattias Ekholm
Wingers: This is probably the weakest spot in the swedish prospect pool with Pääjärvi and Tedenby lost to graduation. Theres a lot of guys that could be really good, but very few that is a sure thing. With other words there a lot of depth but few highend guys. Gabriel Landeskog is of course the star in this group and have a good chance of being a regular this season. The winger I am most excited about is Jakob Silfverberg that at this point at least have taken a big step every season
Top-5 Gabriel Landeskog, Jakob Silfverberg, Anton Rödin, Gustav Nyquist, Jesper Fasth
Centers: A fairly strong potition which is nice since swedens center depth haven't been that great lately. Josefson and Marcus Johansson lost to graduation still leaves both centers with high end skill like Järnkrok, centers with a great defensive game like Lander and centers with grit like Zibanejad.
Top-5 Calle Järnkrok, Mika Zibanejad, Marcus Krüger, Anton Lander, Johan Larsson
Overall: The prospect pool is pretty deep compared to what we usually have. Theres perhaps no mindblowing prospect but a fair amount of quality ones.
Sweden
Goalies: A pretty strong group. Traditionally Sweden have never been very good at developing goalies, but there will be quite a few swedes in AHL next year and some will serve as backups in NHL. Theres a lot of goalie prospects with size like Magnus Hellberg, Lindbäck and Anders Nilsson. The recent sucess in developing goalies probably have a lot to with the introduction of goalie coaches in swedish clubs.
Top-5 Anders Lindbäck, Robin Lehner, Jacob Markström, Jhonas Enroth, Eddie Läck.
D-men:
Even with Erik Karlson and Victor Hedman and OEL graduating theres some interesting d-men left in the pool. It will be fun to see how the three Skellefteå d-men will do. Tim Erixon is a pretty solid prospect and Adam Larsson needs no introduction. It's hard to tell how David Rundblad will translate his game but he could be a impact player in the future. So theres d-men with a nice offensive upside and also a couple of shutdown d-men prospects with a mean streak, which isn't a common profile for a swedish d-man. Patrik Nemeth is a good example of that. Most of the good swedish d-prospects is born 1990 or later, theres not a lot of promising guys 21-25 years old.
Top-5: Adam Larsson, David Rundblad, Tim Erixon, Jonas Brodin, Mattias Ekholm
Wingers: This is probably the weakest spot in the swedish prospect pool with Pääjärvi and Tedenby lost to graduation. Theres a lot of guys that could be really good, but very few that is a sure thing. With other words there a lot of depth but few highend guys. Gabriel Landeskog is of course the star in this group and have a good chance of being a regular this season. The winger I am most excited about is Jakob Silfverberg that at this point at least have taken a big step every season
Top-5 Gabriel Landeskog, Jakob Silfverberg, Anton Rödin, Gustav Nyquist, Jesper Fasth
Centers: A fairly strong potition which is nice since swedens center depth haven't been that great lately. Josefson and Marcus Johansson lost to graduation still leaves both centers with high end skill like Järnkrok, centers with a great defensive game like Lander and centers with grit like Zibanejad.
Top-5 Calle Järnkrok, Mika Zibanejad, Marcus Krüger, Anton Lander, Johan Larsson
Overall: The prospect pool is pretty deep compared to what we usually have. Theres perhaps no mindblowing prospect but a fair amount of quality ones.