Plenty of updates for you today as quite a few SHL teams were playing pre-season training games on Thursday evening. As always, click on the team name heading to go to their respective team page where you can find the Line-Up chart.
Luleå
Luleå are stepping up their preparations with a couple of games against Finnish team Kärpät on Thursday and Friday. I’ve updated their Team Line-Up chart with the combinations they’ve gone with for this evening’s game.
Ahead of the first game, Assistant Coach Roger Kyrö has explained to NSD the two power play formations that they are planning to use. That’s excellent timing, as over the past few days I have been adding a new feature to the SHL Line-Up charts to record the main Power Play and Penalty Kill combinations that every team uses.
I was planning to leave them as placeholders until the competitive games began, with the exception of the three Champions Hockey League teams who I have updated based on how they lined up at the end of last season. As Luleå have kindly disclosed their plans nice and early, I thought I might as well add their details in now.
The Line-Up chart is embedded onto each team page, with tabs at the bottom that you can click to go to additional worksheets (e.g. change it to “PP PK” for those details). As always, these are a work-in-progress so let me know if you have any comments or suggestions.
Färjestad
Thomas Mitell’s team played a training game against Leksand on Thursday evening. I’ve updated both teams’ Line-up charts to reflect who was on the ice.
Recent NHL First Round pick Stian Solberg was partnered with Joel Nyström. Magnus Nygren and Adam Ollas Mattsson were not involved as Färjestad used just six defensemen. Damian Clara, like Solberg an Anaheim Ducks prospect, started between the pipes.
Leksand
As for Leksand, I was keen to see how Head Coach Charles Berglund might deploy the team’s two new defensemen, picked up as free agents from Timrå. The answer from the first main training game: Axel Rindell was paired with Alexander Lundqvist, and Joonas Lyytinen paired with Matt Caito.
Timrå
Timrå played a training game against Vaasan Sport on Thursday. Head Coach Olli Jokinen handed in a line-up with only 11 forwards, including two J20 players in Lukas Sagranden and Hugo Bergendal.
Malmö
Malmö played a training game against German side (and Champions Hockey League entrant) Fischtown Pinguins on Thursday. The wonderfully-named Wiggo Carlgren served as the back-up goalie with Marek Langhamer out injured.
HV71
Head Coach Anton Blomqvist provided an update on his squad’s current state in an interview on HV’s YouTube channel. The main news is that newcomer Tanner Kero is now training with the rest of the team after a minor injury had put him on the sidelines for the past week or so.
Jönköpings-Posten (via HockeyNews.SE) also report that forwards Henrik Borgström and Mattias Tedenby are back in training, albeit apart from the main group, as is defenseman Mikael Seppälä. The latter has been out since December 30th due to a back injury. Expecting him to be fully ready for Opening Day may still be optimistic, but the prospect of Seppälä being with the team early into the new season will be encouraging for HV fans.
Linköping
Linköping have announced today that their captain, Oscar Fantenberg, will be sitting out training for the next couple of weeks. The club posted an injury update on their website (as per Google Translate):
Linköping Hockey Club’s physiotherapist Jonas Emmoth gives us an update regarding Oscar Fantenberg. The defender and team captain Oscar Fantenberg has had a feeling in his upper body during the week. After investigations by the medical team, it is established that Oscar is removed from regular training to undergo rehabilitation. This means that Oscar will not participate in regular training or games for the next couple of weeks.
That makes Fantenberg’s status for Opening Day questionable, although with one month still to go it’s possible he will just about make it.
