MLive’s Ansar Khan profiles Red Wings second round draft pick William Wallinder today, discussing the big defenseman’s positive attributes:
“My skating is really an important thing,” the 6-4, 191-pound Wallinder said. “I try to always give 100 percent every shift, always do my best to help the team win. I’m just a good two-way defenseman that can play in every zone.”
Wallinder, 18, will need to utilize his size playing against men for Modo in Allsvenskan, Sweden’s second-highest division. That is where he spent half of 2019-20, after being promoted from the junior squad.
“He’s going to get tested night in and night out,” Kris Draper, Red Wings director of amateur scouting, said. “He knows he has to get stronger, but when you start talking about the size and the range, you look at some of the teams that were successful throughout the playoffs, they had a big D corps. That’s something we were talking about, but in the end … you’re not going to draft them just because they’re big, you want to draft them because they can skate, make a good first pass and that’s what we felt we got in William.”
Several projected Wallinder to be taken in the first round – NHL.com had him going 19th, TSN predicted he would be taken 26th.
