Amongst the Hockey News’s Connor Eargood’s “odds and ends” from training camp:
Albert Johansson is going to make the NHL roster this season because his waiver eligibility would otherwise allow a team to claim him if he were sent down. Whether or not he gets into games is a different story — as general manager Steve Yzerman explained Tuesday before camp. In terms of what they want to see from Johansson right now, his coaches feel that less is more.
“Simple game. Being able to move a puck,” Lalonde said Thursday. “He showed it in practice today. He had a couple eye-popping, breakout type plays in some very tight situations, but to be able to defend, it’s a little heavier at this level than it was last year.”
Johansson has never played in an NHL game, a product of both the depth chart and the NHL blue line’s unusual health last season. In Grand Rapids, he was a dependable two-way defender who teammates consistently praised. He made the simple play — the right play — and didn’t risk too much. Lalonde feels that Johansson’s best path to playing as a rookie is for that simplicity to build trust through the way it shows dependability.
“(I was) really impressed with him as a player last year,” Lalonde explained. “I was able to see him quite a bit down the stretch last year and we feel he’s ready to help us. He’s gonna have to go earn it. I want to see it in camp. But I just want a simple game out of him. Being able to transport a puck for us, being able to defend, and he did that at a pretty consistent level in Grand Rapids, and we want to see it at our level.”
