Sweden has released their roster for the upcoming Pyeongchang Olympic Games, and even though it doesn’t have any current NHL players, it has plenty of league experience. Staffan Kronwall, Viktor Stalberg, Linus Omark and others highlight what should be one of the more powerful teams in the tournament, but one other name is the taking all the headlines.
Rasmus Dahlin, the expected first-overall pick in the 2018 NHL Entry Draft has made the cut and is one of eight defensemen named to the squad. The 17-year old already starred at the World Juniors and plays a regular role on Frolunda in the SHL, Sweden’s highest professional league. There is little controversy over Dahlin’s ranking as the best talent available in this year’s draft, and a good showing at the Olympics will only raise his stock even further.
- Speaking of prospects, Corey Pronman of The Athletic (subscription required) released his midseason rankings of those already drafted, and lists Casey Mittelstadt at the very top. The Buffalo Sabres draft pick has had a year to remember, selected eighth overall, starring at the University of Minnesota, being named MVP of the World Juniors and just recently being among the nominees for the Hobey Baker award as the best collegiate player in the country. Though things don’t look good in Buffalo right now, Mittelstadt and others—including #24 on Pronman’s list—will look to turn things around in the near future.
- Despite rumors swirling around the Arizona Coyotes, some closest to the situation aren’t as willing to point to a potential firesale of their top defensemen. At least not Craig Morgan of AZ Sports, who calls some of the recent rumors “baseless” and doesn’t think the Coyotes have done anything to “set the market” or trade Oliver Ekman-Larsson, Niklas Hjalmarsson or Jason Demers. Morgan isn’t saying that it won’t happen, just that he believes there is little fact in the rumors that have been spread recently. There’s a good reason to believe that Arizona will move some assets before the deadline, but it doesn’t appear like an Ekman-Larsson is imminent or that even a real asking price has been set.
I’d be interested to see just how much more hype can be built around Dahlin if he plays well in the Olympics. I think even a bad Olympic performance still has him as the favorite for the #1 pick, but I’d imagine teams are salivating over the Dahlin playing in the Olympics and seeing how well he might potentially play.
Could you guys not use a paid sports site like Pronman of the Athletic? 99% of readers here are not, and will not be, members of that website so they can’t read the article. I closed it and this tab immediately before I realized I should maybe mention it and logged back in.
I like PHR – but using and linking subscription sights are a bit misleading.
Totally get it, and don’t want to sound like a shill, but would just say that as a hockey fan, I don’t have enough positive things to say about The Athletic and Pronman’s work specifically. It’s been totally worth it for me. Your mileage may vary!
While I prematurely assumed that I no longer needed the “subscription required” parenthetical–which has been added and will be included in the future–The Athletic remains a top source for breaking hockey information and analysis. In this case, as with links to the Washington Post or ESPN Insider, both of which require a subscription of one sort or another, I never meant to mislead any of our readers.
The “Snapshots” pieces are meant to shine a light on some of the more interesting or informative links around the hockey world, many of which have come from the staff at The Athletic. Because we have no affiliation with them, publication of any more of this specific Pronman article wouldn’t be acceptable and instead is included for any of our audience who do enjoy the subscription.
You seriously think 99% of the people aren’t subscribed who read this website?
We are the 99%.
Yeah, I do think the majority are not paying for sports news. 99% might be a bit dramatic, but with so many opinions on everything hockey – I certainly am not paying a site that teases 2 paragraphs and asks me to pay for the rest.
To each their own – but I think a site like PHR could do without linking major articles to paid subscription sites to save face.
If PHR doesn’t have their own writers out there getting information, and they take the information from some place else, they need to cite in some way where they are getting their information. Sure they could just say “In this post from The Athletic…” without a link but if there are people out there who want to read the whole article, its nicer to link the article than to make the readers search for the article on their own. It’s not like PHR only drops a teaser line that forces us to subscribe to the site. Most of the time, them and their affiliate sites will take the main points of the article for us to see.
The reason for all these people going to The Athletic is because FOX Sports decided to go with a non written content. So that is why FOX has no writers.
A bunch of writers were then hired by The Athletic which requires a subscription.