Red Wings prospect Theodor Niederbach is taking part in the World Junior Championship with Team Sweden, and then he’ll head back to the SHL to play for his new team in Rogle BK.
Niederbach spoke with Rogle’s website’s Peter Ekholm regarding his expectations for the World Junior Championship. What follows is roughly translated from Swedish:
Niederbach dreams of a golden start to the season
The WJC form is rising for Theodor Niederbach, who felt great ahead of the WJC premiere vs. Switzerland.
“We can go all the way. We absolutely can,” says the Rogle forward.
On Tuesday, the WJC starts in Edmonton. For Sweden, Niederbach and the other four Rogle players in place in Edmonton, Switzerland awaits in the first game on Wednesday.
“It will be great fun. We’ve been here for a while now and we’ve played in two exhibition games, but they don’t really mean anything. This is when the important games begin. There are many good teams here and even if, on paper, you should probably win a game, it’s still a tough game, and a game to be won. It’s perhaps the toughest thing that there are so few games here.”
Niederbach was recruited to Rogle from Frolunda before the season, and will play in his second WJC. He was also part of the bubble in Edmonton in 2020-21 where there were two goals in five games. The 20-year-old has a good feeling, despite Sweden losing their two exhibition games before the premiere, against Finland and Canada.
“I think it still feels good. We’ve faced two good teams, and it still feels like we’ll challenge well. Then it’s sad to lose two out of two, but I still think we did good things and that’s what we need to take with us to the tournament.”
Sweden played again against Canada during the night on Tuesday, Swedish time, and lost 4-3. Niederbach, on the other hand, had a prominent role and played a lot, both in 5-on-5 and on the power play for the Junior Krona. The new acquisition from Frolunda accounted for a goal and an assist, and he feels that his form is getting better and better just in time for the premiere.
“I felt good today, I felt that I had a little more energy than in the first game. It’s always a bit difficult to find the pace of the game, and it’s new ice, a new arena and everything. But I felt that my energy was better today and I noticed that, too.”
The WJC is played between August 9th and 20th, and is a restart of the tournament which was cancelled at Christmas due to concerns about the coronavirus. Niederbach is one of five Rogle players that are present at the tournament; Calle Clang, William Wallinder, Daniel Ljungman and Linus Sjodin are also there. The Swedish team is spoken of highly as usual during preliminary talk, and Niederbach believes that they can go a long way.
“We can go all the way. We absolutely can. But it’s not something that we talk about too much. You take it step by step. Now the first game is here on Wednesday, so we’ll take the next game after that and we’ll see how far we go,” says Niederbach.
