DEL.ICIO.USNHL: ATLANTA THRASHERS
Thrashers prospect eager to prove self in NHL
Second-round pick Klingberg still has two years with Swedish league
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Sunday, July 12, 2009
Carl Klingberg hasn’t seen much of Atlanta — yet.
The Thrashers’ second-round draft pick has been limited to van trips between his hotel and the team’s Duluth practice facility last week. Oh, there was a trip to the Mall of Georgia.
Hyosub Shin/hshin@ajc.com
Thrashers’ second-round pick Carl Klingberg, who will finish his contract with the Swedish Elite League, hopes to be playing in Atlanta in two years.
Two more years playing in his native Sweden and he hopes to step right into the NHL.
“I hope I’ll be here after two years,” Klingberg said Sunday at the Thrashers’ Prospect Development Camp. “Maybe less, I don’t know, but that’s my goal.”
Klingberg will play the remaining two years of his contract with Frolunda of the Swedish Elite League.
“Usually Swedish and Finnish players, they will stay in their country until they are ready to play in the NHL,” said Thrashers general manager Don Waddell, who took Klingberg with the 34th overall selection in last month’s NHL draft. “They usually don’t like to make that stop in America. They feel the level they play at is as good as the American leagues. So they’ll come from there right to the NHL.”
Case in point, Tobias Enstrom. The Thrashers defenseman went right from MoDo of the Swedish Elite League to the Thrashers two seasons ago.
If Klingberg does return to make the Thrashers’ roster, he will finally get all the way downtown to Philips Arena.
The 18-year-old played for the Frolunda Junior team most of last season. He had 26 points (13 goals, 13 assists) in 35 games. He also appeared in 10 games for the Frolunda Elite team, recording three points (2 goals, 1 assist). One of his teammates is Nicklas Lasu, a fifth-round draft pick by the Thrashers last season.
Waddell said the team had the forward slated as a first-rounder and was lucky to pick him in the second round. Klingberg says that might be good news for him as well.
“Of course, you are sitting at home for the first round, you want to go,” said Klingberg, who scored two goals in Sunday’s Prospect Camp scrimmage. “Now, it doesn’t matter. I’m happy to be here. Maybe I don’t have so much pressure. People are expecting so much from you [as a first-round pick], and that’s good because I can play relaxed and be myself.”
One of the things that made Klingberg attractive to the Thrashers was his size. Waddell was determined to make his team bigger and stronger in this draft, and he did so with the 6-foot-2, 205-pounder.
“I’m a power forward,” Klingberg said. “I like to forecheck hard, go hard to the net. I put pretty much everything on the net. I like to take the closest way to the net.
“I think they drafted me because they need players like me. That’s perfect because I am what they need.”
Klingberg represented Team Sweden in the 2009 Under-18 World Championships. He had 4 points (2 goals, 2 assists) in six games. Sweden was eliminated in the quarterfinals of the tournament won by the United States, which featured Jeremy Morin, the player the Thrashers drafted 11 picks after Klingberg with their other second-round pick.
“We had set up the goal to win the whole tournament. That was kind of disappointing to go out in the quarters,” Klingberg said. “That’s not fun.”
Then Klingberg let a little of the sense of humor he is known for come through.
“Ask Jeremy over here, he won the [expletive] thing,” Klingberg said of Morin, dressing in the next stall.
Klingberg claims his sense of humor loses something in the translation.
“Maybe in Sweden, but I have a lot of difficulty speaking English. It’s not easy to do jokes here,” he said.
“He’s still funny,” Morin quickly chimed in.
Following the six-day camp, which ends Wednesday, Klingberg will return to Sweden determined to work on his technical skills — “it’s not bad, but it’s not good either.”
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