If, for some reason, you missed out on the Coyotes visit to Philadelphia last night, you missed one of the best kept secrets in hockey doing his usual thing. The slight 22-year-old defenseman from Sweden put a nice deke on the Flyer’s Max Talbot, stepped into the top of the circles and snapped home a power play goal which turned out to be the game winner. If you haven’t guessed the player yet, I’ll spell it out for you. OEL; Oliver Ekman-Larsson.
Fans on the East coast don’t get to see Ekman-Larsson too often, what with playing in Phoenix, a market that hardly gets any national exposure, combined with the fact that the Coyotes haven’t headed to the other coast since before the lockout. Hopefully this season they’ll sit up and take notice, as the young blueliner is emerging as a legitimate Norris trophy candidate already.
Ekman-Larsson is a smooth skating rearguard with impressive offensive instincts and playmaking abilities. He appears much more poised than his 22 years would seem to indicate, and makes smart decisions with the puck. In his own end, he’s hardly known for a punishing or aggressive style (he has just four penalty minutes on the season) but has great awareness and positioning that allows him to break up plays with relative ease. He is, in short, a phenomenal two-way defenseman and a key hope for Phoenix’s playoff chances.
When the NHL was realigned during the summer, the Coyotes were a team that took a big hit. Not only were they still with old Pacific division rivals Los Angeles, San Jose and Anaheim, but they now also have to contend with a top team in Vancouver, an emerging one in Edmonton and a Calgary team that just doesn’t know when to die. The Coyotes, division winners in 2012 and then out of the playoffs in 2013, knew they were going to be in tough to punch their ticket to the first round this season.
Lacking a true superstar up front (though players such as Mike Ribeiro and Radim Vrbata are close), the Coyotes need to rely on a tight defensive system if they hope to keep pace with the big guns in the Pacific. Enter Ekman-Larsson. He’s already scored two goals through five games, leads the Coyotes in average ice time at 23:47 per game and is a big part of why the Coyotes have won two in a row. His defensive ability to both skate the puck out of trouble as well as make a great outlet pass works perfectly within that system. They’ll need him to keep it up, and there’s no indication that he won’t be able to.
Ekman-Larsson has seen his numbers steadily improve since joining the league back in 2010-11 as a 19-year-old. He was solid, if unspectacular, in his rookie season, picking up a goal and 11 points to go along with a plus 3 rating. His sophomore campaign was even better, as he increased his goal total to 13 and his point total to 32 over a full 82 game season.
Then the lockout came, and his numbers suffered as they did for all players. But pro-rated over a full season, Ekman-Larsson had his best year yet. He finished on pace for 41 points, a would-be new career high and finished with a tidy plus 5. In fact, he’s never been a minus player in his career.
It should come as no surprise that the 6th overall pick from 2009 is growing at such a steady rate. The Coyotes have a sublime and rare talent on their hands who is well worth the new $5.5 million cap hit over six years that Phoenix signed him to. Whether he can be enough for the Coyotes to sneak into a playoff spot remains to be seen, but one thing is for sure: Oliver Ekman-Larsson will be a fantastic defensemen in the NHL for many years, and it’s time he starts getting the recognition he deserves.
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