DetroitRedWings.com’s Art Regner has penned a profile of fan favorite Tomas Holmstrom as part of his “How Swede It Is” series of articles this morning:
Tomas Holmstrom never thought much about playing in the NHL.
“I was playing in the league under the Swedish Elite League and in 1992-93, I got the chance to move up to a better team in the Elite League in Sweden,” Holmstrom said. “There was a scout for Washington that saw me play with that team and told me that I was going to be drafted. I thought I was going to be a Washington Capital, but it ended up that the Detroit Red Wings took me in the 10th round (257th overall – 1994 NHL Entry Draft). My goal at that time was to first play in the Swedish Elite League and maybe even break into the Swedish national team before I would get the chance to go to the NHL.
“Until they drafted me, I had no idea that the Red Wings were interested in me. I didn’t know that much about the team except for a few of the players like Steve Yzerman, Dino Ciccarelli and Keith Primeau; who was a tough boy. I knew that they were a good hockey club and one of the Original Six teams. I didn’t know much more than that.”
Unbeknownst to Holmstrom, Detroit’s European scout Hakan Andersson was aware of him and though he liked certain aspects of his game, he wasn’t sure if Holmstrom’s build would hold to the rugged NHL style of play.
“He was actually at a camp when he was 17 years old for the Under-18 team. He may have turned 18, I don’t know,” Andersson said. “He was there at a camp, he was small, but he was tenacious and he kept going to the net and he battled. But he was about 5-foot-10, 165 pounds. Then a couple years later, I stumble across a friend of mine who was a coach up north, had him on his team, and I said, ‘Oh, I know that little shrimp.’ He said, ‘No, no, no, no. This kid is 6-feet, 190 pounds.’ This was two, three years later. So, I said, ‘Oh, that’s interesting.’ So that’s how I stumbled on him.”
