Post-Draft Prospect Profiles: Samuel Sjölund No. 111 to the Dallas Stars

Samuel Sjölund had a quiet season for AIK in the J20 SuperElit. With Oilers’ future No. 8 pick, Philip Broberg, playing most of the season for AIK’s men’s team in HockeyAllsvenskan Sjölund was one of the players that saw an increase in ice-time and responsibility in the SuperElit.

After the club season, Sjölund was close to making Team Sweden’s roster for the U18 World Hockey Championship, but he was the last player to get cut before the tournament started. An interesting note about Sjölund is that he used to be a forward but now solely plays as a defenseman.

Scouting Report

Sjölund is a mobile defenseman with decent speed; he has quick first steps that allow him to stay mobile in all directions and to gain a bit of a push when he starts to move the puck. Over longer distances, Sjölund could add some speed, though.

He takes heavy strides and cannot separate himself from an opponent while carrying the puck. It makes life difficult on puck retrievals when speedy forwards are bearing down on him.

What Sjölund mainly needs to improve about his skating is to become stronger in his lower body and to add more power in his strides, as he often does not seem to get much push out of each step he takes while skating longer distances. Worth noting is that Sjölund is a good backward skater, both when it comes to the initial push and how smoothly he moves his feet to stay mobile.

Sjölund utilizes his skating to transition the play from his own end and up-ice. He isn’t a phenomenal puck-mover. He will need more speed for him to be able to do it at higher levels of competition, but he gets by in the SuperElit.

Sjölund’s first pass is good but inconsistent. The range of passes goes from long-range, tape-to-tape dishes to pucks that fizzle out and clearly miss its target. He can spot openings but has to work on the quality of his passes to become a more reliable player while setting up play for his team. Sjölund is usually quite calm with the puck in both his own and neutral zone and has no problems keeping it simple and make low risk plays if the situation calls for it and does not fall under pressure from forechecking forwards.

Sjölund’s puck skills have the same tendency as his first pass. He can handle the puck very well but sometimes makes small but crucial mistakes while controlling it. That could be due to concentration issues more than his actual puck skills. Either way, he needs to find a bit more stable lowest level of his overall play moving forward. Another thing Sjölund could improve is to play with more determination when he has the puck, as he sometimes hesitates with indecision.

Off of the puck, Sjölund will, at times, join the rush to create odd-man advantages for his team, and he doesn’t hesitate to finish the play if it’s to his team advantage. He does not have the same offensive instincts as the best offensive defenseman of the draft, but the way he plays is a decent substitute.

In the offensive zone, Sjölund has a few notable strengths. First and foremost, his heavy shot from the point. It’s precise and can find its way through traffic, leaving the goaltender little time to react. Sjölund’s wrist shot requires a bit of windup and the release is not the cleanest but the mix of power and precision still allows him to cause trouble for goaltenders, even when they have time to prepare for the shot.

Samuel Sjölund gav AIK ledningen mot Modo, 1-0. #J20gifs #J20SENorra #AIKJ20 #ModoJ20 pic.twitter.com/tSk62ri3v0

— Anton Johansson (@antonj85) September 28, 2018

Secondly, Sjölund can be quite mobile in the offensive zone. Mostly, he moves laterally along the blue line but when he spots a chance to go further into the zone to either create an odd-man advantage or lots of open ice on the other side of the zone he will do so as well. While defending against Sjölund it is important for forwards to not focus on the puck too much, or Sjölund will take advantage of the situation. What Sjölund needs to improve in this regard is to become more consistent with how often he moves down into the offensive zone. When he utilizes his mobility, he does so well, but there are times where he becomes almost completely stationary on a single spot on the blue line.

Samuel Sjölund gjorde 1-0 för AIK mot Skellefteå. #J20gifs #J20SENorra #SKEJ20 #AIKJ20 pic.twitter.com/m63SCsWhqF

— Anton Johansson (@antonj85) September 14, 2018

On the negative, Sjölund could have a bit more patience with the puck in the offensive zone. At times it seems like he’s rushing plays or shots, both of which rarely end well.

He would benefit from handling the puck a bit more. That would allow passing or shooting lanes to open up instead of forcing a play that isn’t there. Overall, Sjölund is an average passer in the offensive zone so it should not be expected of him to become a defenseman that will drive the play while attacking. He can spot obvious passing lanes but is not a player that can consistently create or setup scoring chances for his teammates.

Defensively, Sjölund has a few ups and a few downs. He’s at his best defending the blue line. He makes good choices when to take a step forward to intercept a pass and when to fall a bit further down to be able to stay in better control of an opponent.

In general, he plays quite safe on his blue line and does not pinch unless he has made a good read on a pass. Due to his initial quickness skating backwards, Sjölund can keep good control of a lone opponent with the puck, and with that manage gap control well, and steer the puck towards the boards instead of giving up the inside.

Further down into his own zone, Sjölund can make good reads to intercept passes but he can also make positional mistakes that gives his opponents open ice behind him. This is often because he has not paid enough attention to what is going on around him. That type of behaviour will bring us to one of the main knocks on Sjölund’s defensive game — he focuses too much on the puck, too often. Even at times where it is obvious that he does not need to move towards, or focus on, the puck he still does it. When he does that there’s a risk that he leaves high danger areas around him unattended for opponents to take advantage of.

Sjölund is not weak around his own net and along the boards, but he will need to add upper body strength moving forward. In SuperElit he can mostly hold his ground without any major issues as long as he is positioned well. He is not the most physical player and could use his frame more often while defending, but he does not shy away from physical contact and can take a hit to win the puck or to clear it out of his zone.

Outlook

Moving forward, Sjölund is one of several players from AIK’s J20-team that has been given a try-out contract with their men’s team in HockeyAllsvenskan, the second tier league behind the SHL in Sweden. The try-out contract will expire on August 31st and Sjölund will, most likely, spend the upcoming season as an AIK-player, playing in SuperElit and/or HockeyAllsvenskan. Sjölund should be seen as somewhat of a project and will not be NHL-ready in the nearest future.