RW Oliver Bjorkstrand (2013, 89th, CBJ)
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spintheblackcircle
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- Mar 1, 2002
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CBJWerenski8
Rest in Peace Johnny
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50 in 50
Portland Winterhawks @pdxwinterhawks · 1m 1 minute ago
Goal! 50 in 50! @OBjorkstrand scores again and that's goal #50 in game #50 this season!
Portland Winterhawks @pdxwinterhawks · 2m 2 minutes ago
12 straight games with a goal, 50 in 50 games, this is something else, folks.
OG
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spintheblackcircle
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WannabeFinn
Beloved One
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WannabeFinn
Beloved One
31 goals (and 55 points) in the 22 games since returning from WJC. Bjorkstrand elevated his game so much during that tourny and hasn't looked back.
Justinov
Registered User
Yeah hopefully they can have this inter-Danish competition for years to come about being best on the ice in NHL
But after the WJC no question about it that O. Bjørkstrand has been more impressive than Ehlers (who hasn't been a slug himself).
I remember seeing him live in his draft year and thought he was the best player out there. Seems like a keeper now for sure.
zeropotentate
Registered User
with 7 games left, Bjorkstrand will probably get 60 goals, and if he keeps up his recent trend of 2+ goals per game, even 70 goals isn't totally out of reach, though obviously he'll need to score 16 goals in 7 games to do that.
MatthewFlames
Registered User
I'll take the under on that. But I'll go ahead and guess 12 in the next 7. 66 total.
izzy
go
Huh? The 2nd round is already looking very strong just 1.5 years later and the 3rd round looks even better.
Zaddy
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- Feb 8, 2013
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Disagree. I'd pick Bjorkstrand over most guys in the 2nd round. Not too many guys who project as a top6 forward or top4 d-man there IMO. The only guy I'd for sure take over Bjorkstrand in the 2nd round is Bowey. You can argue about a few other guys but it doesn't make much of difference. The 3rd round does have some gems like Duclair, Buchnevich and Andrighetto and who knows what Slepyshev and Yakimov will amount to, but overall the 31-91 range is pretty weak.
Actually, looking at it, you can make a case for the 4th and 5th round being as "good" as the 2nd and 3rd with guys like Saros, Possler, Gudlevskis, Paul, Subban, Reway, Lindberg, Copp, Fasching, Motte, Butcher, Ully and Bartosak all tracking well.
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izzy
go
You must think too much of the 2nd and 3rd rounds, they aren't typically that successful. 2003 is such a solid draft year, but only 19/60 played 200 games in the NHL. Most years, get around 6-8 NHL regulars from each of those rounds and not many of them are top 6 forwards or top 4 D.
2013 looks really promising in those rounds. I'd be surprised if these guys don't hit 200 games: Erne, J DLR, Hagg, Bigras, Petan, Heatherington, Lehkonen, Bowey, Carrier.
Then you've got guys like Mccoshen, Dauphin, Elie, Vannelli, Bertuzzi, Sanford plus the trio of Comrie, Jarry and Desrosiers all look promising to make it at some point.
And like I said, the 3rd round looks just as good if not better. EB22 posted this earlier this week, kind of relevant.
I'm not saying Bjork can't be the best of the 2nd and 3rd round, I'm saying that it wasn't a weak year in those rounds at all.
Zaddy
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- Feb 8, 2013
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I'd call it average at best (particularly considering how many players in the later rounds looks as good if not better than many guys picked in the 2nd and 3rd and that is not even 2 years out of the draft) but lets not get hung up on semantics. My point was simply how unbelievably overlooked Bjorkstrand was in his draft year. You start to wonder what these supposedly professional scouts do for a living. It's not like he was a hidden guy out of some obscure location, he was right in front of their nose playing on a powerhouse team in the WHL.
MatthewFlames
Registered User
I don't think it is unbelievable that he was "overlooked". His point totals and performance can easily have been attributed to the quality of that team. He was much more timid and a peripheral player, as well as being seriously behind the curve in his skating. I don't think there was as much denial in his skill level, but he didn't look like he had the other qualities that one attributes to being successful at the next level.
Obviously, he has righted some of these problems. He's grown a couple inches, improved his skating, and become a player more willing to go to the dirty areas (which may just have been an adjustment from European game to NA game.)
He's a hot prospect for sure but he's still not a guaranteed for sure thing at the NHL level. He will have to prove that he can play against men, get bigger, continue to improve his skating, improve his play away from the puck etc. Just like most junior players.
All that said, he is a fantastic prospect, who would most certainly get drafted much, much higher if teams had actual crystal balls.
Black Noise
Flavourtown
Well to be honest, he didn't put up a ton of points in his draft year (0.96 PPG) and was pretty small.
No one knew he was gonna grow and put up a ton of points in his +1 year. Now a days, drafting outside the Top 50 is just dumb luck (unless your Detroit, I honestly don't know how those ******** do it) , and the Blue Jackets got lucky.
