Will have a story in the print edition of tomorrow’s paper on Capitals rookie forward Mattias Sjogren, who will be in a fight to make the final 23-man roster during training camp this month. That process starts with the first practice on Saturday.
But an interesting topic came up during Bruce Boudreau’s post-practice media chat at rookie camp on Wednesday at Kettler Iceplex. Sjogren’s strength right now is his defensive game. He’s a smart, physical player with work to do on his skating. Hard to imagine him making an impact offensively right away at age 23 in smaller ice rinks and at a higher level. But in many ways that’s the Swedish model. Some players are more skilled than other, of course – Nicklas Backstrom and Marcus Johansson are obvious examples right here in Washington – but almost all Swedes have a sound defensive base when they come to North America for the first time.
“You know what I think – the one thing the Swedes all do, even Matty [Sjogren], too, – they learn defense first before they come over here,” Boudreau said. “If you look at the scoring leaders at any point over in the Swedish League it’s like 30 points. Yet they come over here and they’re great offensive players because they play such a defensive system first over there. They learn that side of the game before they learn the offensive side of the game. And I think that all three of those guys have learned that part and they know that part.”
It should be noted, in the Swedish Elite League you’re likely to get 50 to 55 games instead of 82 in the NHL. And last year Joakim Lindstrom led the SEL with 28 goals and 32 assists. So it isn’t quite as dire as Boudreau suggests at the offensive end. But certainly, preventing goals is the emphasis over there. And in this United Nations world of hockey, that’s just one way to teach and play the game. Washington has some other European players who came up through a different system.
“Let’s put it this way, we talked about the Swedish guys, always skilled, but focused it seems like on defensive hockey,” Boudreau said. “The Russians – you look at [Caps defenseman Dmitry] Orlov and [forward Stanislav] Galiev – you look at all the Russians in the league, how skilled they all are. It seems like they focus on development when they’re really young, on the skill aspects of it. And Orlov and Galiev are two very, very skilled Russian hockey players.”
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