Showing posts with label colorado avalanche. Show all posts
Showing posts with label colorado avalanche. Show all posts

July 04, 2009

Darren Haydar to Colorado *Updated*

MODO Hockey in the SEL has been showing interest, but now it's apprently official that Canadian Right Winger Darren Haydar will continue his career in the NHL/AHL.

Haydar's agent has confirmed to Johans Blogg that the Canadian right winger has signed a contract with the Colorado Avalanche.

Darren has had a successful AHL career so far with for example a league MVP award and a Calder Cup under his belt, but is still working on cracking an NHL roster and become a regular in the big league.

Not the biggest of news, but now you got it in English for the first time.

UPDATE JULY 6: The signing is now official.
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June 13, 2009

Random news - Where will the monster go?

Goalie Jonas Gustavsson, who seems to be this year's Fabian Brunnström, has narrowed it down to four NHL teams for next season. According to Aftonbladet, he travelled today to North America to visit Colorado, San José, Dallas and Toronto.

Gustavsson beat Henrik Lundqvist's old SEL playoff record this season for number of minutes without letting a goal in with the new record being 222 minutes and 40 seconds. This accomplishment gave him the nickname "The Monster" in Swedish media, which still lives on.

He ended up leading his team Färjestads BK to the Swedish Championship this year. Then he was awarded The Golden Puck and helped Team Sweden getting the bronze medal in the World Championship in May.

Gustavsson will get the maximum rookie contract no matter where he ends up, so money isn't a factor. Instead he is looking for the team that feels the most right.

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Swedish defenseman Patrik Hersley isn't exactly one of the more known Swedes in North America. This season he has been part of the Philadelphia Flyers, but has only played in the AHL and the ECHL.

After two seasons in the AHL and the ECHL with not much to show for it, he has decided to head back to Sweden. Hersley had one year left on his contract with the Flyers, but will now instead play that year with the team where his career started, Malmö Redhawks in HockeyAllsvenskan.

Hersley is still just 22 years old. So maybe he will make the jump across the pond again one day, if he can get his game going at home.

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Speaking of Malmö Redhawks; Detroit's super scout Håkan Andersson has expressed interest in 19-year-old defenseman Anton Blomqvist, who plays for that team. Andersson says the following to the newspaper Sydsvenskan.

Yes, we are interested. That we are, says Håkan Andersson.

A comment like that from a scout doesn't say much, but I thought it was interesting as the scouting service Redline called Blomqvist "the most underrated player in the draft at any position" just before last year's draft.

In that draft, Blomqvist was passed over. A big reason for this was probably that he basically had not played anywhere beyond the Swedish junior leagues. This year he played with the Swedish U19 national team though and impressed when he got a shot with Malmö's senior team in HockeyAllsvenskan at the end of the season.

Andersson describes Blomqvist as a big and mobile defenseman, who needs to add more muscles. I would also add that he got a bit of a mean streak and I must say he became a bit of a favorite of mine because of his finish to the season. Next season he will play full-time on Malmö's senior team.

A player to keep an eye on.
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June 24, 2008

The Flyers let their chief European scout go

After about 20 years as the chief European scout for the Philadelphia Flyers, Inge Hammarström has been let go. Newspaper Gefle Dagblad had a talk with him.

- Yes, I was informed the day before the draft here in Ottawa. We had discussed an extension, but they had come to the conclusion that they wanted a new voice and we have therefor decided to go separate ways, says Inge Hammarström.

Hammarström, who played NHL hockey in Toronto and St. Louis in the 70s, has had the position since 1990 to be exact. He was the scout that pushed the hardest for the Flyers drafting Peter Forsberg, who was actually only ranked at number 25 before the draft by The Hockey News. This is something he obvious is proud of.

Inge Hammarström thinks his biggest accomplishment was when he found Peter "Foppa" Forsberg and convinced Philadelphia to draft him in the beginning of the 90s. But also thinks that it was weak by the club to trade him away with a bunch of players for Eric Lindros before he even came over to the NHL.

- The club missed a chance to win a couple of Stanley Cups there. It was also sad that they didn't pick Jaromir Jagr, even though I really tried to convince them to draft him, says Inge.

He also thinks that the Flyers not being able to win any titles, during his time with the team, have been the toughest.

- But at the same time I've been well faoured to be able to be in the same organization for such a long time and been part in helping rebuilding the team again.

Swedish goalie Joacim Eriksson ended up being Hammarström's last pick as a Flyers scout. Inge says though that he has already gotten interest from other NHL clubs with few scouts in Europe, so he will probably find a new team soon.

Interesting with the Forsberg/Jagr part - that would have been a fun duo to watch. On the other hand, Forsberg won 2 Cups with Colorado, Jagr won 2 with Pittsburgh and Lindros led Flyers to a Stanley Cup final before his concussion problems started, so it turned out pretty good for the teams.

By the way, Mike Ricci was the player that they picked instead of Jaromir Jagr.
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June 16, 2008

Andreas Jämtin to the Rangers

Various Swedish sites are reporting that right winger and former Detroit prospect Andreas Jämtin has signed a two-way contract with the New York Rangers. 25-year-old Jämtin became Swedish Champion last season with SEL team HV71 and had an NHL out-clause in his contract.

He is one of those guys you either love, when he is playing for your team, or hate, when he is on the opposite team - an agitator and grinder with some scoring abilities.

It's the second player that HV71 loses to the NHL in the last couple of days. Jämtin's linemate Per Ledin, who basically is Sweden's answer to Sean Avery minus Avery's Hollywoodish side (dating celebs, interning at Vogue magazine etc), signed with Colorado Avalanche the other day.

Personally I'm a bit surprised that NHL teams are signing Swedish players with this kind of playing style, since it feels like they are pretty common in North America. I'm guessing though that Detroit's Stanley Cup win with 7 Swedes on the team didn't hurt the chances for guys like Jämtin and Ledin to get signed.
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