Swede Wings

The Detroit Red Wings History of Swedish Players

By Chris Turner, Zetterbergfan.com, Updated January 10th, 2013

 

The Detroit Red Wings are known nowadays for all of their Swedish players. But drafting and signing Swedes isn’t new to the organization. Since 1981, the Red Wings have drafted 48 Swedish born players, 11 of which have made it to the NHL (only 10 with Detroit). They have also signed 9 Swedish free agents since 1972. 4 of those free agent signing have helped the team win the Stanley Cup.

 

The first Swede to ever play for the Red Wings was defenseman Thommie Bergman . He played  parts of six NHL seasons between 1972 and 1980, appearing in a total of 246 games with the Red Wings.

The next season a Swedish left Winger named Tord Lundstrom ,played 11 games for Detroit.

 

Left Winger Dan Labraaten was signed in 1978 and spent the next three seasons with the Wings. He scored 52 goals and had 54 assists for 106 points in 198 games before being traded to Calgary in 1981.

 

The Red Wings 1^st Swedish draft pick was defenseman Robert Nordmark,  drafted from Lulea HF (SEL)  in the 10^th round, 191^st pick, of the 1981 Entry Draft.

 

Nordmark stayed in the SEL and was re-drafted in 1987 by the St. Louis Blues. He played 67 games for St. Louis in 1987-88. He played 169 more games for the Vancouver Canucks from 1988-91.  Nordmark finished his career in the SEL.

 

The Red Wings didn’t draft any more Swedes until the 1984 entry draft when they picked three, Stefan Larsson, Lars Karlsson, and Urban Nordin. None of them ever played in the NHL.

 

Three more Swedes drafted by Detroit in 1985, Thomas Bjuhr, Bo Svanberg, Mikael Lindman, also did not make it to the NHL.

The Wings tried their luck with Swedes for the third straight year in the 1986 draft when they picked three more; Johan Garpenlov , Per Djoos , and Peter Ekroth. It was a somewhat successful Swedish draft. Both Garpenlov (87 games from 1990-92) and Djoos (26 games in 1990-91) played for the Red Wings.

 

At the time, left Winger Johan Garpenlov was the highest pick (5^th round, 85^th overall) Detroit had ever used to pick a European player.  He scored 40 points as a rookie in 1990-91. He was traded the next season to the San Jose Sharks and later to the Florida Panthers, and went on to play 609 games with 311 points in the NHL.

 

In the 1989-90 season, the Red Wings had one of the greatest and most influential Swedish players of all-time, legendary Hall-of-Famer, Borje Salming. 

 

After playing 16 seasons and 1099 games for the Toronto Maple Leafs, Salming played 49 games for Detroit in the last season of his career. He had 19 points and was a +20.

 

The Swedish trailblazer was an idol for future superstars like Mats Sundin and Nicklas Lidstrom.

 

In 1987 the Wings took a shot on Tomas Jansson in the 12^th round. The long shot didn’t pan out.

 

Swedish amateur scout Christer Rockström can be credited with two of the biggest moves in Detroit Red Wings history. The first was scouting and drafting Nicklas Lidstrom with the 53^rd overall pick (3^rd round) in the 1989 draft. The second was recommending Håkan Andersson as his replacement in 1990.  

 

In the 1993 draft, scout Håkan Andersson would have his first successful draft pick, defenseman Anders Eriksson . Eriksson (1^st round, 22^nd overall) was the highest drafted Swede ever by the Detroit Red Wings.


Eriksson played parts of four seasons (1995-1999) with the Wings before being traded to the Chicago Blackhawks for Chris Chelios.

 

The Red Wings have drafted at least one Swede in every year’s draft since selecting Eriksson in the 1^st round of 1993.

 

Håkan Andersson had another stellar draft pick in 1994 when he selected Tomas Holmstrom 257^th overall in the 10^th round.