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Player Discussion Leo Carlsson

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theathletic.com

'Is it true? Is it real?' Leo Carlsson's family ready for his NHL debut with Ducks

Carlsson, the No. 2 pick in this year's draft, had his first game delayed slightly because of an injury.
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IRVINE, Calif. — Technology now allows for NHL games, like the one the Anaheim Ducks will play against the Dallas Stars on Thursday night in Southern California, to be watched anytime, anywhere on any available platform.

But a nine-hour time difference can still matter to those who want to see the game live or don’t have the capability to view it whenever they please. Niklas Eriksson is going to make the effort. He has one reason to do so: Leo Carlsson.



It isn’t every day that a Swedish teenager chosen with the No. 2 pick in the NHL Draft makes his highly anticipated debut. Carlsson is the highest pick from Sweden since Buffalo took Rasmus Dahlin No. 1 in 2018.

“Of course, I’m really excited about it,” said Eriksson, who was Carlsson’s coach at Örebro HK in the Swedish Hockey League, now commonly known as the SHL. “To follow him from a young kid then to now — he’s still a young kid, but now he’s playing in the big league — I think a lot of new people and fans around hockey are going to be watching the game.

“The time change is a little bit tougher on the West Coast than the East Coast. But, of course, a lot of people are going to watch the game. I’m going to try to watch as well. It’s going to be really interesting to see him on the Ducks now.”

Nearly four months after Ducks general manager Pat Verbeek went against the conjecture that University of Michigan star and Hobey Baker Award winner Adam Fantilli would be chosen after wunderkind Connor Bedard, the player they’re convinced will be a franchise center in the making takes the ice at Honda Center for his first NHL test against a team that was one step away from playing for the Stanley Cup.

Carlsson’s debut was delayed a few days as he recovered from a leg injury, so anticipation will be in the air on Thursday. He heard the ovation as he was introduced to an overflow crowd for Sunday’s home opener. It will be the first of many if he becomes the star the Ducks hope he’ll be. But he’s also determined to not let the moment overwhelm him. He insisted there would be no problem getting sleep the night before and feels he’ll be able to take a pregame nap. “It’s going to be easy,” Carlsson said with a smile.

“I think I’m pretty good at not feeling pressure,” he added. “You know what I mean? It’s the first NHL game. Obviously, I’ll be a bit nervous and stuff. But as soon as the puck drops, I’m going to just focus on the game and play it.”



When the puck is dropped and he takes his initial shift, Carlsson will be 18 years and 297 days old. He’ll be the third-youngest player in team history to make his debut; only Oleg Tverdovsky and Mason McTavish were younger. He’ll join Sergei Fedorov as the only Ducks to wear No. 91.

Ducks right wing Jakob Silfverberg, who’s been with the team for 11 seasons, has taken to looking out for his fellow Swede. He didn’t know of Carlsson’s exploits for Örebro until he got to know him when they played together at the World Championships. He’s come to already appreciate the easy confidence Carlsson exudes ahead of his once-in-a-lifetime night.

“I feel like the more you know him, the more you realize he’s kind of mature for even how young he is,” Silfverberg said. “I don’t know if he doesn’t realize how big of a deal it is — I don’t think it’s the right way to put it — but I just feel like he kind of just takes everything day by day. Nothing really looks too big for him, that sort of thing.”

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Carlsson, selected with the No. 2 pick this past June, is the highest-drafted Swede since Rasmus Dahlin went No. 1 in 2018. (Jason Kempin / Getty Images)
When Carlsson went through the team’s development camp following the draft, Verbeek saw a player who was due for a break. The whirlwind that was playing in Finland and Lativa at the Worlds, facing travel issues that forced the entire family to drive from Newark to Nashville for the draft, and then getting to know the rest of the Ducks organization in California within a matter of weeks had taken its toll.

“He hadn’t had any time to kind of settle down,” Verbeek said.

And then in September at the Rookie Faceoff in Las Vegas, Verbeek saw Carlsson charge up the ice with a smooth, powerful stride on his first shift. The center tracked down a Vegas prospect, took the puck away from him and went behind the net to try a wraparound shot that had Verbeek insisting “had he just taken another extra half-second, he would have scored.”



He’d lose his skate blade as he fell into the endboards. But while that play immediately got his attention, Verbeek said what Carlsson did later in the first period convinced him he needed to be in Anaheim, starting his NHL career at his tender age.

“The play he made to Tristan Luneau on the back door — that was the play,” Verbeek said of a precise setup Carlsson gave the defenseman prospect for a goal. “The vision. The intelligence. That’s kind of what really stuck out. Even when I’m watching him here in practice. He’s a really, really smart player. I think this is going to be great for him.”

Any hope Eriksson might have quietly harbored for the Ducks to determine a return to Örebro would be best for Carlsson’s development ended in that rookie tournament. Carlsson would follow that by holding his own during preseason action. It doesn’t take long to see what Verbeek sees.

The defensive instincts, whether in picking off outlet passes or breaking up plays with his stick. The sharp cuts that show how nimble he is. The pushes on his strides that eat up the ice and run counter to the perception that his skating was his lone drawback. The vision to see the developing play in advance and the decisiveness in trying to execute it. The accuracy in which he puts passes on teammate’s stick blades.

Add that with Carlsson’s determination to win a job right away and Verbeek was won over. It also doesn’t hurt that Carlsson is 6-foot-3 and 195 pounds, with Verbeek believing he could eventually be most effective at 215.

“I think they weren’t really sure from the start,” Eriksson said. “We had a discussion and we talked to Verbeek here a couple weeks ago and he told us that we’re going to keep him. As the time went on, more and more I understand Anaheim would like to keep him. Of course, we are the first to congratulate Leo for that.

“For us, it would be really nice to have one more year. In the end, maybe that would have been good, too. I think he’d be even more ready to make it to the NHL. But I think he’s going to make it now. And when we talked to Leo, he said he would like to take the chance and test how it is.”



First-year Ducks coach Greg Cronin is gearing Carlsson up for his first game by putting him with the team’s two offensive standouts, Trevor Zegras and Troy Terry. Cronin has emphasized how he wants his most skilled players to skate with each other. Until now, Zegras and Terry have mostly operated on different lines. Now he’s going to see what Carlsson does in the middle as a facilitator — and maybe a finisher, as Verbeek wants him to be more of a willing shooter.

Loading up the three pure talents could work. Eriksson said he believes Carlsson is the best he’s seen at processing plays and that his vision and feel for the game are natural. He calls it a “quickness from the brain to the hands.”

“How quickly he understands the situation and how quickly he can do things, that’s what really sticks out for me,” Eriksson said. “Also, the big frame is going to help him be tough to get the puck from. His reach and big body. But, for me, he’s more of a passer than a shooter. That’s going to be interesting to see, too, if he can improve his shots and take more. I think that’s going to be important for him to have both.”

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Carlsson had 25 points in 44 games with Örebro in 2022-23. (Courtesy Örebro Hockey)
Once he took the GM job, Verbeek said he’d lean more toward having the Ducks’ best prospects develop at lower levels until they were ready to be in the NHL and stay. But they opened this season with 19-year-old defenseman Pavel Mintyukov, their top pick in the 2022 draft, who scored his first NHL goal Sunday.

It will now be Carlsson’s turn.

“I just looked at him,” Verbeek said. “I saw his ability. Saw his skill. And then I saw him play with our other players here, regular players. For me, it was a no-brainer.”

Camilla Carlsson always watched her middle child accomplish things earlier than others: taking his first steps at 10 months, Skating at 18 months, skating backward at 2 ½ years. Leo was in kindergarten when he attended his first hockey practice.



“He was two, three years younger than the other ones,” she said. “You had to lift him up on the bench. He was dangling his feet and legs. Even for the games (where) they played on the half rink, the coaches had to lift him up because he couldn’t reach the bench.”

Now she and her husband, Kenneth, watch and marvel as their son operates at the speed required to play at the sport’s highest level. She is “super proud” and “super nervous” about Thursday night but wants most of all for Leo to be pleased with the game he’s about to play when he leaves the ice.

“This is a big moment, and he has always wanted this,” Camilla said, beaming with each word as she spoke. “Strive for it, I would say. Definitely. It’s worth the late nights. The driving to and from the arena or to the games. He’s skipped a lot of birthday parties. … He has sacrificed a lot but it’s worth it.

“Just joy. Nerves and joy.”

The moment was originally set for last Saturday when the Ducks opened their season at Vegas. Camilla and Kenneth had arranged to be at T-Mobile Arena and then spend this week in Orange County. They looked forward to visiting Las Vegas for the first time. Plans changed when Leo crashed into the boards during a practice drill and had to be helped off the ice.

Thousands of miles away, they got an ill feeling.

“I was in bed,” Kenneth said. “Early morning. Really early in the morning. I woke Camilla up and (said), ‘Oh no, now it’s happened. Season’s over.’ We’re lying here and Camilla said, ‘Well, we can’t do anything now.’

“I just saw the headline. Leo’s hurt. I go, ‘Oh my god.’”

They later learned the leg injury wasn’t as bad as they and the Ducks initially feared. A talk with Leo calmed them. “He said nothing is broken,” Kenneth said.

Now, Kenneth laughs at the scare and jokes that it’s part of hockey. He knows about playing hurt, having been a defenseman for teams in Sweden from the mid-1990s to the early 2000s.



He does a lot of reflecting on the journey his son has made; how Leo was always the smallest in his class until his big growth spurt and how his movements have caught up to his body, how the kid who played on the veranda through all four seasons is now seen as a critical piece in an NHL team’s resurgence.

“It’s a dream come true, of course, for the whole family,” he said. “Leo has worked hard, and we have worked hard for him to come to this.”

Said Camilla: “Sometimes you have to pinch yourself. Is it true? Is it real?”

It will be. Leo knows a lot of eyes will be on him. Some will be up at 4 a.m. in Sweden following along. “I hope so,” he said.

Lost in the shadow of Bedard Mania and following in the aftermath of Fantilli’s opening week with Columbus, Carlsson now gets to show he will be worth watching at any time of the day. The 18-year-old might be playing his first NHL game, but he’s going about it as if he’s been around for years.

“Obviously everyone is different but he’s extremely comfortable, but in a very harmless way,” Silfverberg said. “It doesn’t come off as cocky or arrogant. That’s just the way he is and it’s very harmless. Props to him because I remember how nervous I was. That’s a good thing.

“I’m sure it will be a night for him to remember for a long time.”
 
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It’s funny how it seemed to be a foregone conclusion in the summer that Leo would be in a tougher spot to find a spot in the NHL until Lundy‘s injury, let alone a prominent one on a scoring line, while Fantilli would get to rip it up with Gaudreau and company right away. Now Leo‘s the one playing alongside the team’s top players right away and seems in the best spot to put of big numbers in his rookie year - even compared to Bedard. This can obviously swing back around in who knows which ways given how early we’re in the season, but the 180 so far did amuse me.
 
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Vipers31 said:
It’s funny how it seemed to be a foregone conclusion in the summer that Leo would be in a tougher spot to find a spot in the NHL until Lundy‘s injury, let alone a prominent one on a scoring line, while Fantilli would get to rip it up with Gaudreau and company right away. Now Leo‘s the one playing alongside the team’s top players right away and seems in the best spot to put of big numbers in his rookie year - even compared to Bedard. This can obviously swing back around in who knows which ways given how early we’re in the season, but the 180 so far did amuse me.
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Yeah, all of the noise with the three was annoying. People need to let things play out before acting like they can predict the future.
 
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If (when) Carlsson learns to bury breakaways against NHL goalies, he's going to be so much tougher to play against. He seems to get those more than any player we've had in a long time.
 
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Mr Rogers said:
They mentioned that he bought a car with with his parents being in town. I bet you anything they bought a Volvo lol
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With the amount of money he's going to make throughout his career, he might as well buy back all Volvos that North Korea stole in the Grand Volvo Heist of the 1970s. :laugh:

Edit: on a more serious note, I think he is a very down-to-earth person (or at least comes across as such) that he probably bought a car based on utility rather than looks/prestige, contrary to many athletes his age who immediately buy Lamborghinis, Ferraris, Bugattis or AMG Mercedes SUVs. The organization definitely needs to ensure him keeping that mentality.
 
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GermanRocket7 said:
With the amount of money he's going to make throughout his career, he might as well buy back all Volvos that North Korea stole in the Grand Volvo Heist of the 1970s. :laugh:

Edit: on a more serious note, I think he is a very down-to-earth person (or at least comes across as such) that he probably bought a car based on utility rather than looks/prestige, contrary to many athletes his age who immediately buy Lamborghinis, Ferraris, Bugattis or AMG Mercedes SUVs. The organization definitely needs to ensure him keeping that mentality.
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I absolutely could see him buying a Volvo haha. if i were a player in his shoes, i think i'd do something similar (Audi A6 allroad or a Volvo Suv would be my pick, haha)
 
Cronin needs to have him spend an hour at practice doing breakaways under pressure. For a big guy he’s slippery and finds himself with a good amount of breakaways, and once he can start coverting them into goals he’ll be insane.
 
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Lord Flashheart said:
Who could have predicted that the guy who debuted on SHL at 16 y.o. could possibly not look out of place in NHL this season. Shocking turn of events.
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Well, we did have Lundy as a predecessor of being a 16 year old in the SHL. He lasted 15 NHL games. Then again, Carlsson is a top-2 pick whereas Lundy was the 23rd pick overall.
 
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