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Update- Wings officially recall 5 players
Thanks to all for the Christmas wishes and for reading this year. It’s an immense blessing and honor to blog for the team that made me love hockey. While the rebuild is in the “shedding contracts” and drafting phase, I’m looking to the WJC for some indicators on how the future is shaping up. Team Sweden had 4 Detroit prospects on the ice (Berglund wasn’t on out for this one).
You can see the Game Center link here. Detroit’s prospects on the ice are:
Lucas Raymond #18 (this year’s top pick for Detroit) listed at 5’10” and a right shot/right winger
Theodor Niederbach #16 listed at 5’11” right shot centerman/winger
Elmer Soderblom #25 - 6’8” left shot winger
Albert Johansson #9 - 6’0” left shot Defense
The standout Detroit prospect, for me, in this game was Elmer Soderblom. Listed at 6’8” (the play by play/color analysts had him at 6’6”) you notice the big Swede when he’s on the ice. If you’d been at LCA for the prospects camp in 2019, you would have heard cries of “Elmer!” Every time he hit the ice. I know, because those cries came from some good friends of mine. It’s impossible not to smile when that is going on.
Soderblom made his presence known, especially in the 2nd and 3rd periods. His puck retrieval and board battles were impressive. He was the net front presence for the power play, and scored his lone tally on a beautiful puck between the legs flip while standing just to the right of the net. Lucas Raymond had the primary assist on that shot.
I started calling him “Soderblom the barbarian” because he just pillaged the opponents down around the net. If he can make that shot in tight (and it can translate to the NHL) this young man could have the 2nd best hands “in tight” in Detroit’s system. (Mantha has the best mitts in tight, and can shoot from all over. Zadina has the best shot from the faceoff dots in my opinion). Elmer looked a lot like what we hoped Rasmussen could do (and did one pre season). Get in tight, make life miserable, use your size, get a shot off.
Raymond had some good possessions and really can skate the puck well.
Niederbach had some opportunities and finished with 1 goal. It’s impossible to get an accurate picture in just one contest. The first period was tough to watch from a Swedish perspective. Czech was all over them, and seemed to be much more in sync as a team. Keeping in mind that Sweden didn’t get a warmup game due to quarantine, the team found its groove about halfway through the second and scored 6 unanswered goals.
Broberg, Edmonton’s top pick in 2019, was all over the ice and looked impressive. It was a shame not to have Seider in the tournament this year (picked 2 spots ahead of Broberg) but fear not. Dobber Prospects had this to say of the German right Dman:
A human wrecking ball. There is no better way of describing Seider’s recent performance. He has been throwing around his opponents like he was playing with kids. Even though he is only 19 and plays against much older competition, his physicality is just on another level. However, he has been dominant in almost every other possible way, not just wrestling with other players.
His defense is stunning. He plays with great poise, reads the game well, and just as much contributes offensively, which is an underrated part of his excellent overall game. He has recorded two goals and 12 points in 17 outings with roughly over 20 minutes of ice time per game. He has been so much fun to watch lately.
The future has some bright spots, to be sure. I’ll continue to follow Team Sweden who picked up their 53rd straight WJC victory (insane). Raymond and Niederbach are both very young and will be doing a lot of growing in the next few years. It’s easy to see why Yzerman still looks closely at Sweden for drafting. There is a high level of play and a great deal of 200 ft puck management. The United States looks very “run and gun” and just aren’t committing to the defensive details. German, even though they are down several players, are more and more impressive as the years go by. The North American development will have to adjust (in my opinion) as Europe plays a more and more complete game. Igor Larionov is running a Russian Machine, and Finland is really bringing it. The lack of interest in a defensive structure is evident in many of the high flying US teams. It will be tough to maintain success as defensive structures get more and more stifling.
Detroit Red Wings Blogger • 
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