Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Victor Hedman is Hurt

TSN reported yesterday that Victor Hedman has suffered a separated shoulder and could miss three weeks. This shouldn't hurt his draft stock but maybe General Managers should look at his injury history. He suffered a concussion last year at the Under-18's.

I still think he will either be going first or second in the Draft. You can't pass up the size he already has. He has two goals and six assists in 21 games with MODO of the Swedish Elite League.

The ISS has released their November rankings for the 2009 NHL Draft. In the top 20, there're five players from Sweden.

Magnus Svensson-Paajarvi is ranked the fifth best player available for the draft. After John Tavares, he could be the best forward to come out of this draft. He's relatively unknown by most North Americans but he burst on the scene at last year's World Junior Championships. With Timira also of the SEL, he has lit the lamp twice and tallied six assists in 20 games.

Jacob Josefson is ranked 17th and he's been sitting around the 17th range since the summer. He has put up similar point totals to Svensson-Paajarvi. He has four goals and three assists in 21 games with Djurgården.

One Swede that I am interesting in is Carl
Klingberg. He's been climbing like Frolunda teammatate Erik Karlsson did last year. The left winger has three goals and six assists with the SuperElit team.

In a previous ISS ranking, Anton Lander was ranked 14th. He falls to 28th in the November ranking. He's a teammate of Svensson-Paajarvi. He has two goals and three assists in 16 matches. Iwander what's the big dropoff is for? Some players have risen but 14 spots is a big dropoff.

NHL Central Scouting will be releasing their primarily rankings later today.
That's My Take

(Nathan also is a writer for Maineiacs Post to Post and the Maine Hockey Journal. He can be reached at fourniern@students.nescom.edu. You can subcribe to the World of Junior Hockey by signing up for a free newsletter)

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