Michael Brandsegg-Nygard had a pretty quiet exhibition season debut last night vs. Chicago; the 18-year-old who turns 19 on October 5th looked quite a bit like a player skating in his first NHL-level game, but there were moments that you noticed him on the ice. He played a serviceable 15:12 on the ice, getting off 1 shot and 1 missed attempt, registering 2 hits and 1 takeaway. He also played on the left wing with the Red Wings’ first power play unit, which looked pretty darn good.
He’s probably not going to make the Red Wings’ roster out of the exhibition season, but his attributes have Red Wings fans and beat writers alike wondering if the Wings might assign Brandsegg-Nygard to Grand Rapids instead of returning him to Skelleftea in the SHL–as the Wings are able to do because they signed Brandsegg-Nygard to an entry-level contract this past summer.
This morning, the Free Press’s Helene St. James discusses Brandsegg-Nygard’s aims as he learns more about the league in which the Red Wings expect him to play sooner than later:
“I was pretty excited [during training camp],” Brandsegg-Nygård said Wednesday. “I was ready to try to fight for a place on the team. It’s my dream to play in the NHL, so I was excited. If I not make the team this year, next year I have one more year experience with training camp. I know the system more and will probably be more comfortable. I think it will help me a lot. Right now, I think I have the world’s longest preseason, too — I was up in Sweden, I had a preseason there before I came here.”
The plan is to get Brandsegg-Nygård as many games as possible during the eight-game NHL exhibition slate.
“We’ll give him some time on the power play,” coach Derek Lalonde said. “Hopefully he’ll get some touches and some looks and get his shot off. We’ll play him with some players that can do some work for him.”
One of his linemates has been Marco Kasper, the team’s first-rounder from 2022.
“It’s fun to play with him,” Kasper said. “It’s actually kind of funny because he’s Norwegian, I’m Austrian, but we talk Swedish to each other. He’s a really good player, great shot, offensively minded.”
Brandsegg-Nygård said adapting to the smaller ice sheet used in North America isn’t an issue, because “where I’m from back in Norway, we have NHL-sized rink, so it’s not like the first time I’ve played on it.”
Continued (paywall); as Brandsegg-Nygard says, whatever happens regarding his attempts to earn a spot on Detroit’s roster, he’s going to go back to Sweden or embark upon his AHL rookie campaign with a wealth of experience and knowledge as to what it’s going to take to make the NHL.
He’s learning both what it takes to skate in the NHL, and he’s learning how to train, eat, rest and recover all at once, which might be information overload, but that’s what you want to some extent. Wherever he ends up, this “crash course” in professional hockey is going to benefit him greatly as he continues to mature and develop.
I like what Brandsegg-Nygard can bring to a roster when he’s comfortable and confident, and I know that he’s having a little bit of trouble with finding his stride–and he’s naturally tending to hang out with players who speak Swedish as that’s his real “second language”–but whatever happens, he’s got a significant amount of potential to develop into a sniping power forward, and the Red Wings need that kind of player in their system.
