Red Wings prospect Anton Johansson plays on a Leksands IF team that’s run by his father, GM Thomas “Tjomme” Johansson. Leksand isn’t expected to do well in the SHL this season as they’re a small-market team, but “Tjomme” Johansson tells Ronnie Ronnqvist that he believes that his son is going to be a big part of the team’s successes this upcoming season:
Many people are asking for a stable defender on the blueline, an Anton Lindholm, Jonas Frögren, Mattias Timander and so on, is this something you are also thinking about?
“I know how close Anton Johansson was to ending up in North America, and maybe even getting the opportunity to play in the NHL in the future. If he lives up to the quality he has, no one will miss that type of player.”“Now he doesn’t have that ‘track record.’ That’s what I can sometimes think when you do an analysis of Leksand [as a team]. That you do it based on how many years the player has played in the league when you look at Eliteprospects, instead of looking at the potential and what’s behind it. Also look behind that door.”
“I absolutely believe that he (Anton Johansson) could be such a player, and I don’t know how many other SHL defenders could actually have had the opportunity to play in the NHL. I hope that he can take on a good, big role and play at the high level that he showed during the preseason.”
Continued (in Swedish, at length); Johansson’s been dynamite during the SHL preseason. If he can play half as good on most nights, “Tjomme’s” prediction about his son might be right in that the small-market Leksand team might not need to import a star defenseman in order to finish with a halfway decent season.
