Johan Garpenlöv

[Eye of Ra]

What are you guys memories of this player? What did he bring to the ice?

Played for Florida, Sharks, Wings and Atalanta.

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[sr edler]

I didn't know Garpis played in Serie A, for Atalanta. You learn something new every day.

 

[sr edler]

I don't think he had an abundance of skill, more of a hard-working two-way winger.

 

[Bear of Bad News]

Gave his all for 200 feet. Fun to watch!

 

[bleedgreen]

Wasn’t he the third guy on the Larionov/Makarov five man unit with Ozolinsh and Jeff Norton? The SJ line that defeated the mighty Red Wings and gave Detroit the inspiration for the five man Russian unit?

 

[Albatros]

Wasn’t he the third guy on the Larionov/Makarov five man unit with Ozolinsh and Jeff Norton? The SJ line that defeated the mighty Red Wings and gave Detroit the inspiration for the five man Russian unit?

Yes, the Russian line Garpenlov-Larionov-Makarov lasted for a year in San José, but actually Garpenlöv himself was significantly more productive with Kelly Kisio and Rob Gaudreau the season before.

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

 

[tabness]

It is a sad irony that Garpenlov played a part in upsetting the Wings in 1994.

His rookie year he played a lot with Fedorov and Fedyk to form a great two way second line. He had the skating and decent enough finesse skills (showcased more especially with more ice he was good on the powerplay) to work with Fedorov, but unfortunately, like many Swedes back then, he was a bit too pass first, and Fedorov loved to handle the puck to the point of overhandling it, and Garpenlov would get that pass while open and... pass back lol

He had a pretty good shot too, probably could have scored 30 consistently if he shot more.

Garpenlov was not physical, and got the usual abuse that Euros in the early nineties did, but I do love that he at least slashed Verbeek back here:



Nice highlights of a game where Garpenlov in particular played real good:

 

[buffalowing88]

It is a sad irony that Garpenlov played a part in upsetting the Wings in 1994.

His rookie year he played a lot with Fedorov and Fedyk to form a great two way second line. He had the skating and decent enough finesse skills (showcased more especially with more ice he was good on the powerplay) to work with Fedorov, but unfortunately, like many Swedes back then, he was a bit too pass first, and Fedorov loved to handle the puck to the point of overhandling it, and Garpenlov would get that pass while open and... pass back lol

He had a pretty good shot too, probably could have scored 30 consistently if he shot more.

Garpenlov was not physical, and got the usual abuse that Euros in the early nineties did, but I do love that he at least slashed Verbeek back here:



Nice highlights of a game where Garpenlov in particular played real good:

Thanks for this! I always remembered him as a pass-first guy. And not in a detrimental way. He just preferred to set other guys up.

 

[quietbruinfan]

Wasn’t he the third guy on the Larionov/Makarov five man unit with Ozolinsh and Jeff Norton? The SJ line that defeated the mighty Red Wings and gave Detroit the inspiration for the five man Russian unit?

"We are thinking of calling him Viktor Garpenlov" Igor Larionov

 

[vikash1987]

Garpenlov was great for the Panthers during their Cinderella run in ‘96. He scored that big goal for them in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Finals.

 

[MS]

A few thoughts/memories on Garpenlov:

1) I remember a lot of hype for the Fedorov/Garpenlov rookie duo for the Wings in 1990-91, in the first half especially. Garpenlov had a 4-goal game at one point and those two really seemed to be at the forefront ushering in a new era in Detroit who had tons of rookies/breakouts that year. Tim Cheveldae took over in goal, Yves Racine scored 47 points as a rookie defender, Keith Primeau put up disappointing numbers but was very intriguing, and guys like Fedyk/Ysebaert stepped into regular roles as well. In the end, Garpenlov tailed off as the year went along and that group of players (outside of Fedorov) became more symbolic of the false start of the early 1990s than the success of the late 1990s for the Wings.

2) As a player, I remember (or don't remember, I guess) him being literally the most vanilla Swede ever and average at everything with no real distinguishing traits. Just an average-size, average-talent, middle-6 sort of two-way guy.

3) He had an interesting career in that he blipped in Detroit as a rookie and then fell off badly, blipped again in San Jose with Makarov and Larionov before falling off again, and then blipped a 3rd time on rat-era Florida before going into permanent decline.

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

Garpenlov tailed off as the year went along and that group of players (outside of Fedorov) became more symbolic of the false start of the early 1990s than the success of the late 1990s for the Wings.

yeah, i always think about the mountain of useful-to-pretty good players detroit gave away in those years, en route to the championship teams

quoting myself—

not counting primeau or chiasson, or anyone else traded for a key piece to the cup teams:

mike knuble - mike sillinger - dallas drake
johan garpenlov - kevin miller - paul ysebaert
shawn burr (c) - greg johnson - randy mckay (a)
brent fedyk - tim taylor - wes walz

yves racine - jason york
dan mcgillis* - bobby dollas
bob boughner (a) - jamie pushor

and that team would not get pushed around, with kris king, stu grimson, troy crowder, jim cummins, dennis vial, mckay, boughner, and dan cloutier's brother sylvain, who i assume must know how to fight if he grew up in that household.

 

[Albatros]

A few thoughts/memories on Garpenlov:

1) I remember a lot of hype for the Fedorov/Garpenlov rookie duo for the Wings in 1990-91, in the first half especially. Garpenlov had a 4-goal game at one point and those two really seemed to be at the forefront ushering in a new era in Detroit who had tons of rookies/breakouts that year. Tim Cheveldae took over in goal, Yves Racine scored 47 points as a rookie defender, Keith Primeau put up disappointing numbers but was very intriguing, and guys like Fedyk/Ysebaert stepped into regular roles as well. In the end, Garpenlov tailed off as the year went along and that group of players (outside of Fedorov) became more symbolic of the false start of the early 1990s than the success of the late 1990s for the Wings.

2) As a player, I remember (or don't remember, I guess) him being literally the most vanilla Swede ever and average at everything with no real distinguishing traits. Just an average-size, average-talent, middle-6 sort of two-way guy.

3) He had an interesting career in that he blipped in Detroit as a rookie and then fell off badly, blipped again in San Jose with Makarov and Larionov before falling off again, and then blipped a 3rd time on rat-era Florida before going into permanent decline.

He was very consistent when healthy, but after his knees were gone he was no longer a useful player. In a way like a slightly less talented, smaller, and more injury prone Mats Sundin.

 

[sr edler]

In a way like a slightly less talented, smaller, and more injury prone Mats Sundin.

Well, they are around the same age and came up through the same systems, both in Nacka and Djurgården. In a way it's funny to me that Ra mentioned that Garpis played for the Thrashers but not that he played for Djurgården, because in a way Garpenlöv is the quintessential Djurgården player for me, especially around that time in the late 80s/early 90s when they became a power house team in Swedish hockey: not overtly flashy but just very effective, fairly speedy and all-round/team-oriented up and down the ice, almost like a new school-ish expansion era NHL team like the Golden Knights or the 22–23 Seattle Kraken, where any line can kill you and they just convert on their chances all the time, which kinda drives you mad if you cheer for another team.

But I can totally see Garpenlöv blending into the Kraken line-up, like an Oliver Bjorkstrand type of piece, or this past year's version of Daniel Sprong.

They've had a bunch of these type of players through the years, like Jens Öhling in the 80s or Charles Berglund in the 90s.

 

[Yozhik v tumane]

In a way it's funny to me that Ra mentioned that Garpis played for the Thrashers but not that he played for Djurgården, because in a way Garpenlöv is the quintessential Djurgården player for me, especially around that time in the late 80s/early 90s when they became a power house team in Swedish hockey: not overtly flashy but just very effective, fairly speedy and all-round/team-oriented up and down the ice, almost like a new school-ish expansion era NHL team like the Golden Knights or the 22–23 Seattle Kraken, where any line can kill you and they just convert on their chances all the time, which kinda drives you mad if you cheer for another team.

These are Lasse Falk’s Djurgården teams whose 1-3-1 Rickard Fagerlund vowed to erase from Earth, right?

 

[sr edler]

These are Lasse Falk’s Djurgården teams whose 1-3-1 Rickard Fagerlund vowed to erase from Earth, right?

Sure, but Fagerlund said a lot of things he didn't bat for later on, like banning Sundin and Renberg from the national team when they joined their NHL clubs, and stuff like that.

I'm too young to have experienced the Falk hype first hand, though the first hockey game I ever went to was Djurgården vs Södertälje at Hovet, I must have been around 10 (so I guess 1990–91 season?) and we sat really close to the ice so it was hard to see anything because I was fairly short as a kid. Djurgården won 2-0, that's the only thing I really remember, so it must have been some type of trap hockey.

I've never really cheered for any hometown team though. Closest to heart is probably Hammarby, of the Stockholm teams, but when I was a kid Loob was my favorite player (much like Peter Forsberg's, we both have good taste in hockey it seems), so I cheered for Färjestad in hockey in the 90s (not anymore though).

 

[sr edler]

Speaking of Falk, another one of these Djurgården players that comes to mind is centre forward Nichlas Falk, I think of no relation to the coach. Half of these guys looked not like athletes but more like random chaps you would find at Solvalla or down at your local harness racing club.

Most NA people probably don't know this, but that generation of Swedish hockey players was patently OBSESSED with harness racing. I think the Sedins even owned their own horses.

 

[Yozhik v tumane]

Sure, but Fagerlund said a lot of things he didn't bat for later on, like banning Sundin and Renberg from the national team when they joined their NHL clubs, and stuff like that.

From what I’ve gathered, Fagerlund did indeed go to bat against the 1-3-1/trapping systems at least, championing the removal of the red line in the Swedish league and the IIHF, and appointing Hardy Nilsson as the head coach of the national team following his success with torpedo hockey as a counter to the trap (also with Djurgården, ironically).

I'm too young to have experienced the Falk hype first hand, though the first hockey game I ever went to was Djurgården vs Södertälje at Hovet, I must have been around 10 (so I guess 1990–91 season?) and we sat really close to the ice so it was hard to see anything because I was fairly short as a kid. Djurgården won 2-0, that's the only thing I really remember, so it must have been some type of trap hockey.

Kent Nilsson surprisingly (to me) praised Falk as one of the best coaches he had during his career, despite them being very different in terms of philosophy. But Nilsson seemed to appreciate Falk’s knowledge of the game, and that his system worked.

I cheered for Färjestad in hockey in the 90s (not anymore though).

For a last nail in the coffin, was it Theodor Lennström’s clownish grin that only a mother could love and their ugly rucksack hockey during last year’s finals? Yeah, figures. T’was difficult to stomach for me as well.

 

[ShelbyZ]

He was very consistent when healthy, but after his knees were gone he was no longer a useful player.

That's what I was trying to recall. I could be getting him confused with someone else but I kind of remember him trying to play through an injury in '97 and that's kind of what plagued him for the rest of his career in the NHL. The next year, he and Sheppard and Muller were supposed to be the Panthers top line, but at some point a 15-20 or so games into the year, the 3 combined for less than 10 pts or something like that. Then not long after leaving the NHL, he ended up being forced to retire due to a different injury suffered a couple years after he went back to Sweden.

 

[sr edler]

For a last nail in the coffin, was it Theodor Lennström’s clownish grin that only a mother could love and their ugly rucksack hockey during last year’s finals? Yeah, figures. T’was difficult to stomach for me as well.

I haven't followed the SEL since the 90s. No disrespect to that player mentioned above, but I don't know who he is.

I also liked Leksands IF in the 90s. We used to go on vacation there in the mid to late 90s and caught some games. One during the 94–95 NHL lockout season against Västerås where we briefly met N. Lidström outside of the arena after the game. One against Luleå in a later season when Myllys scored a goal (it was a playoff game).

I also remember one year we even talked ourselves into the locker-room (this was in no relation to any game, we were just at the arena, so no players were there), and I remember they had a pretty fancy locker-room (this was the old arena, which I figure is now gone?).

But that 90s Färjestad team had some likeable players, especially Roger Johansson. I just looked at his wiki page and apparently he played in the 1996 World Cup, I had forgotten about that (if I ever even knew about it). He was also on that 94 Olympic team.

 

[Yozhik v tumane]

I haven't followed the SEL since the 90s. No disrespect to that player mentioned above, but I don't know who he is.

I also liked Leksands IF in the 90s. We used to go on vacation there in the mid to late 90s and caught some games. One during the 94–95 NHL lockout season against Västerås where we briefly met N. Lidström outside of the arena after the game. One against Luleå in a later season when Myllys scored a goal (it was a playoff game).

I also remember one year we even talked ourselves into the locker-room (this was in no relation to any game, we were just at the arena, so no players were there), and I remember they had a pretty fancy locker-room (this was the old arena, which I figure is now gone?).

But that 90s Färjestad team had some likeable players, especially Roger Johansson. I just looked at his wiki page and apparently he played in the 1996 World Cup, I had forgotten about that (if I ever even knew about it). He was also on that 94 Olympic team.

Yeah, I was aware you weren’t that interested in the SHL, just kidding around a bit regarding last year’s finals that broke me.

Lennström was Färjestad’s #1 defenseman and scooted up my rankings of punchable faces in hockey during the one game I saw live in Luleå. They had a huge comeback to tie the game 4-4, having trailed 4-1. My seat was close to the ice and the Färjestad players were celebrating just in front of us, and as Lennström joined his teammates to celebrate the goal he taunts us. I’m usually pretty levelheaded but not when it comes to Luleå, so I (and many strangers next to me) jumped up flipped him two birds and hollered a piece of my mind.

But it was a great game and an amazing atmosphere. For basically the last half of the game, the entire arena were standing up and singing. The game went to overtime, and Einar Emanuelsson — one of the most likable players in hockey, a diminutive, shifty, creative winger who’s hardly taken a penalty in 300 something games — who’d had a rough season only scoring one goal during the entire year, scored the winner.

My first live game was in 1994 or 1995, I figured that I probably saw Peter Forsberg play going back and looking up box scores as I remember it was Luleå - MoDo and we won, but I was too young to remember much at all.

Roger Johansson I’ve realized was a profile later on of course, but I can’t say much more about him. I’ve thought I should go back and watch some 1996 World Cup games though. I listened to a podcast that focused much on the nailbiter against Canada, where the hosts talked about Forsberg losing his fate in linemate Daniel Alfredsson ever converting one of his many chances, and began trying to do it all himself. Probably a fun game to rewatch.

 

[ozzie]

Refresh my memory, did Garpenlov primarily play with Makarov and Larionov on the top line? or did Todd Elik center Garpenlov?

I seem to recall Garpenlov played with the two Russians. Younger me seems to remember Makarov and Garpenlov shredding my Wings. Sore point, but a lot of respect for that early Sharks Team and always loved their uniforms.

 

[Yozhik v tumane]

Refresh my memory, did Garpenlov primarily play with Makarov and Larionov on the top line? or did Todd Elik center Garpenlov?

I seem to recall Garpenlov played with the two Russians. Younger me seems to remember Makarov and Garpenlov shredding my Wings. Sore point, but a lot of respect for that early Sharks Team and always loved their uniforms.

Looking at the scoring logs from 1993-94, Garpenlöv played mostly with Larionov and Makarov, yeah. He shared 25 and 21 points respectively with them, and only 3 with Elik.

 

[Albatros]

Another Swede Ulf Dahlén was playing more with Elik that year.