In a winner-earns-the-Olympic-spot game in Aaborg, Denmark: team Norway took a 1-0 lead over the home Danes on a Mats Zuccarello goal, but the Danes stormed back with consecutive 2nd period goals by the Danish Nick Jensen, Fredrik Andersen was superb in the Danes’ crease, and Norway just never seemed to overcome home-ice advantage, despite out-shooting and out-skating Denmark at times.
The Norwegians were jittery and tried to force plays far too often en route to a 4-1 loss to the 2026 Olympic-bound Denmark.
While Norway opened things up in the third period, that resulted in Patrick Russell’s salt-it-away goal with 4:29 left in the 3rd, Russell got an empty-netter with 1:27 left, and that was that.
Michael Brandsegg-Nygard looked very much so like and 18-year-old with little experience in these kinds of winner-take-all games. He took two dumb penalties for interfering with Danish players unnecessarily (in a game where the refereeing was fast and loose), though the Danes couldn’t score on said penalties…
And while he was defensively responsible, physical, and downright nasty after the whistle sometimes, I didn’t see that big, booming shot of his appear very often. He was utilized as a left-wing one-time shooter on the first power play unit, but he weas more physical than anything, and he did earn regular ice time at even strength on the Norwegians’ third line.
Watch the backcheck from Brandsegg-Nygård: pic.twitter.com/0TVeWfOjFB
— IcehockeyGifs (@IcehockeyG) September 1, 2024
For most of the Norwegians’ young players, there was a fair amount of deference to the team’s veterans, which is what happens when you’re young guys playing in a huge game.
Overall, MBN looked solid, his compete level was excellent, he definitely looked like a power forward, and while his straight-line skating needs a little bit of work, and he’s not going to be the biggest guy in the scrum at 6’1,” he goes into those hard areas and pushes and shoves when necessary.
He’s gonna be a real power forward in time, but there are aspects of the game for Brandsegg-Nygard to work on, from his skating and upper-body strength to his consistency on a shift-by-shift basis, and this was a great learning experience for him. He’ll also play in two Champions Hockey League games (playing for Skelleftea AIK) before coming to Detroit, and those games will also give them him more exposure to playing against high-level talent.
Those were the positives and the negatives for MBN, who’s said repeatedly that he wants to spend the 2024-2025 season with Skelleftea AIK (unless the Red Wings decide otherwise after MBN attends training camp).
