Anaheim, Calif. – Anaheim Ducks center Samuel Pahlsson walked down the Honda Center hallway, offering his thoughts to Swedish journalist Gunnar Nordström after scoring the only goal in Game 2 of the Stanley Cup Finals on Wednesday night.
The way Pahlsson is playing against the Ottawa Senators, stepping out of the relative shadows as one of the top defensive forwards in the NHL, to a higher-profile role on a possible Stanley Cup champion, he could be on the way to being the much-chronicled toast of Sweden in the offseason.
Yes, “Sami” Pahlsson.
Not Peter Forsberg. Not Vancouver’s Markus Naslund and the Sedin twins, Daniel and Henrik. Not Detroit defenseman Nick Lidstrom. And perhaps not even Daniel Alfredsson, the Senators’ veteran captain seeking to be able to be the first player to hoist the Cup overhead after the final game of this series.
“I hope they’re rooting for me, but maybe not,” Pahlsson said with a laugh about the fans in Sweden, as he stood in the Ducks’ dressing room after Anaheim took a 2-0 lead in the series.
In September 1999, when he was 21, Pahlsson attended the Avalanche’s training camp before heading back to Sweden. He had signed with Colorado, but part of the deal was that he be allowed to play one more season with MoDo in the Swedish Elite League.
“I think it’s best for me to stay in Sweden,” Pahlsson said during that 1999 camp. “It was what I thought was right.”
The next March, though, he got a call as he was about to board a plane with his MoDo teammates, and a friend told him the news was all over the Internet – the Avalanche had traded him to Boston as part of the package for Ray Bourque and Dave Andreychuk.
He never played a game for Colorado.
“I was just there for a rookie camp and a couple of days there at the big camp,” Pahlsson said, “and you always learn something from it. It was the first thing I saw of NHL hockey, so of course I picked something up. I got to see what the NHL was like.”
At the time, he wasn’t being trumpeted as a defensive forward, but more as a solid, all-around prospect who wasn’t from Ornskoldsvik, the hometown of Forsberg and other NHL players, but had played for MoDo there. After a failed stay with the Bruins and a subsequent trade to the Ducks, he has become recognized as nearly peerless at that craft, and he is one of the three finalists for the Selke Trophy as the NHL’s top defensive forward.
“I kind of developed into that when I came over here in the NHL,” he said. “Back home, in Sweden, you’re an all-around player and do everything. I came over here and I got put into a role. I would love to be a goal-scorer, score 50 goals every season, but that’s not me, I can’t do that. I have a role out there and I try to do the best I can at that. I like it.”
In this series, Pahlsson’s line – with Rob Niedermayer and Travis Moen on his wings – has been dominant, not just discombobulating the Alfredsson-Jason Spezza-Dany Heatley line, but scoring both game-winning goals. Plus, Pahlsson has been dominating Spezza on faceoffs. His game is gritty, too, belying his personality.
“He loosens up a little bit around the guys,” Moen said, “but he doesn’t say a whole bunch. He’s a fierce competitor on the ice.”
So far, the Spezza line has been terrible.
The complexion can change when the series shifts to Ottawa, where the Senators will have the last change and the Ducks will have to scramble to get the Pahlsson line out against Spezza.
Through two games, that matchup has been no contest.
Terry Frei can be reached at 303-954-1895 or tfrei@denverpost.com.
