WC hockey | The Swedes have some ten reinforcements from the NHL, including Erik Karlsson

Five players will arrive from Minnesota: forwards Joel Eriksson Ek with Marcus Johansson, defensemen Jonas Brodin and goaltender Filip Gustavsson, another goaltender Jesper Wallstedt got a chance in the Wild’s goal in three games and mostly caught on the farm in Iowa in the AHL. From Pittsburgh, in addition to Karlsson, another quarterback Marcus Pettersson, from Buffalo Victor Olofsson and from Seattle another forward André Burakovsky will strengthen the Swedes.

The 33-year-old Karlsson is returning to the national team for the first time since September 2016, when he made his debut at the World Cup in Toronto. He will go to the WC for the third time. In 2010, he won bronze in Mannheim and Cologne, and two years later in Stockholm, he was left without a medal after being eliminated from the Czech Republic in the quarter-finals. In 2014, at the Olympic Games in Sochi, he achieved silver.

Hockey World Cup 2024

In the 2022/23 season, Karlsson collected 101 points for 25 goals and 76 assists in 82 games in 82 NHL regular season games, becoming the first defenseman to reach the milestone since Brian Leetch in the New York Rangers in 1991/92. . Bobby Orr crossed the line six times, Paul Coffey five times, and Al MacInnis and Denis Potvin once.

Karlsson, who also played for Ottawa, collected 817 points (189+628) in 1002 games. In 67 playoff duels, he added 53 points (8+45). He won the Norris Trophy for the best NHL defenseman three times in 2012, 2015 and 2023.

Twenty-four-year-old Dahlin will make his second appearance at the World Cup, having made his debut two years ago in Tampere. In 2018, he also competed at the Olympic Games in Pyeongchang. Brodin and Eriksson Ek are the 2017 World Champions from Cologne and Paris. Gustavsson won gold at the championship a year later in Copenhagen, where he failed to score against Anders Nilsson and Magnus Hellberg.

Burakovsky, winner of the Stanley Cup with Washington (2018) and four years later with Colorado, has so far only represented at the 2016 World Cup in Moscow and St. Petersburg. For Johansson, the only big event so far was the silver Olympics in Sochi. Olofsson performed in 2021 at the WC in Riga and Wallstedt last year in Tampere and Riga. There was also Pettersson, who three years earlier also started in Bratislava and Košice.

The Swedes will play in Basic Group B in Ostrava, and their opponents will be the United States of America, Poland, Germany, Kazakhstan, Latvia, France and Slovakia.