As the NHL season slowly makes its way to the finish line and with the NHL draft just around the corner, fan bases of non playoff and playoff eliminated teams will begin to look towards this year’s crop of young and exciting talent. This year’s crop of players playing in Scandinavia is excellent with the potential of seeing four players being drafted within the top 10.
I have compiled a ranking of my top 20 draft-eligible players who played their draft year in Scandinavia and am here to explain my reasoning behind certain rankings. These rankings will be published on Twitter and Instagram on Monday this week. So without further ado, let’s begin with…
Mattias Hävelid remains my top-ranked Scandinavian defenceman
This should come as no surprise to anyone who has followed my rankings over the last seven months. I love Mattias Hävelid. Maybe a little too much at times but he brings a lot of qualities that I like in my defenseman. Qualities which I just haven’t seen from other defensemen out of Scandinavia this year. Now I’m not going to go into super fine detail on why I like him so much as I plan on writing a player profile on him in the near future but he is definitely a player that should be on everyone’s radar by now.
The one thing that I’ve liked the most about him since day one wasn’t so much his ability to skate around the ice in an almost effortless way; it was more the way he defended the rush along the boards. Now a lot of players I’ve watched will just slowly close the player out till they’ve run out of room but Hävelid, even at 5’10”, isn’t afraid to lay the body on you occasionally as you come flying down the wing.
Now his play in his own end is iffy at times and it will need work but his ability to get pucks up the ice is one of the best in this year’s draft in my opinion. At the U18s this year he was one of if not the best defenseman at the tournament and showcased both his ability to get pucks up ice with his feet and his offensive ability by leading all defensemen at the tournament with 12 points in 6 games.
I truly do believe that Hävelid is worth a first-round selection and that under the right development system he could be a very good top-4 defenseman one day in the NHL.
Noah Östlund ranked 6th
Not so much a hot take, but considering many rankings have him as low as 35 and NHL Central Scouting had him at 18 on their European Skaters rankings, one could say it is.
Östlund is an interesting player, originally many saw him as the lead head of Djurgårdens Cerberus, consisting of Jonathan Lekkerimäki, Östlund and Liam Öhgren. As the year has gone on, however, he has slipped to the 3rd head and even the odd man out with some rankings having both Calle Odelius and Öhgren ahead of him. I however see him as the second head.
Östlund has the makings of a good two-way player in my opinion. He moves around the ice well, gets the puck up ice and is always moving. He can also score and be responsible in his own end which, as a centreman, is one of the biggest things I look for. He also possesses a good playmaking ability finding open teammates with his passes.
Östlund was one of Sweden’s best players at the U18s this year and thanks to his 10-point performance at the U18s he will probably jump up in a few people’s rankings. Currently, he sits in the 10-20 range heading into my final rankings for this year.
Calle Odelius as my third-ranked Scandinavian defenseman
For many in the scouting community, Calle Odelius is viewed as a first-round pick, heck some even had him in their top 10 at one point in the season. For others such as myself, however, he remains outside that first-round threshold.
I personally don’t have too many bad things to truly say about Odelius, he skates well and he has the ability to move the puck up ice with his feet. However, when it comes to him moving the puck up ice I feel as though there are times when he seems to hesitate to push the puck into the offensive zone even when there is an opportunity for him to do so. This hesitation is what makes him a little less attractive to me than someone like Hävelid who will free-wheel through the neutral zone and into the offensive zone when there is an opportunity.
Now, why do I have Elias Salomonsson ranked above him you might ask. The same reason why Hävelid is above Odelius. Following my viewings of team Sweden at the U18s, there was a noticeable difference in how Salomonsson was playing from my previous viewings. He looked much more confident with the puck on his stick, moving it up ice with his feet and holding onto the puck looking for a passing lane. I also feel that he is more reliable defensively than Odelius albeit he still needs to work on closing the gap quicker.
Although I’ve never been extremely high on Odelius throughout this year, I have started to warm up to him over the past few months and will have him in my early second round.
Final notes
In my honourable mentions, I included five players who I think teams should consider taking a swing on in the later rounds. Otto Hokkanen is one player who intrigued me during my viewings thanks to his motor and his understanding of where he needs to be positionally in his own end. I also took a liking to Rasmus Vuorinen who is a smooth skater and loves to get involved offensively.
Although I only ranked 20 players for this ranking, there were at least another 20 players out of Scandinavia who may make it onto my Final Rankings list that did not make the cut on this list. My final draft rankings for 2022 will be out near the end of June.