A detour through Stockholm and Djurgården made him land with the Swedish championship winners Luleå. With Djurgården, Eriksson had a different role than expected. He played centre and stood for the defensive coverage on his line, a role that was important as Djurgården earned promotion to the SHL after years of absence.
No Montreal Canadiens fan would have missed the start of the season that Eriksson has had. He has plenty of points and he flirted with a point-per-game pace, the same pace Oliver Kapanen had last season. The points have come in batches, usually against weaker teams and the consistency is still lacking. Suiting up against league-leaders Rögle in their arena is as tough as it gets, and Eriksson came away with a -2 rating, but one of the goals against happened just as he got on the ice.
Elite Prospects
The problem for Eriksson is that Luleå, the champion last year, isn’t up to compete with the top teams in the SHL at the moment, Rögle, Frölunda, and Skellefteå are on another level (or two). The good thing is that he will be one of the knaves of the offence, the negative part is that there might not be enough offence to make a difference.
I have watched Eriksson quite a few times this year, but I just watched him for the first time live. He has gotten bigger, and you can see that even from the media box. The second noticeable change is that he looks confident out there, at least as much as you can when you lose 6-0.
His defensive reads are good, however I wonder if Luleå’s man-to-man system isn’t working. He sometimes ends up far away from the puck, leaving a gap behind him that can be exploited. Most teams in the SHL overload and leave the far side a little bit less covered hoping to cut off passing lanes, Luleå runs a more classic system, and it’s not just Eriksson that ends up far away at times.
With regard to this, and when comparing Eriksson’s time in Nybro two season’s ago, it is clear that he isn’t cheating to break out of the defensive zone early. That is good and it will help him no matter where he plays in the future. He gets a half chance, but again he looks more comfortable and his confidence doesn’t take a hit like last season.
One thing that still needs work is his forecheck, while he has gotten bigger he doesn’t use his body as much as he could in the offensive zone. It’s more skating around and using his stick to poke the puck away rather than separating the player from the puck with a big hit.
As mentioned Rögle is at least a size too big for Luleå and it wasn’t on Eriksson that the team suffered a big loss. The team is not constructed well, and with Brian O’Neill out for another game due to a suspension it is tough to expect more from Eriksson’s line. Luleå plays at Malmö on Saturday, an important game for the bottom part of the table, and the kind of game where Eriksson might showcase his finishing skill.
I would expect him to finish with about half a point per game over the season, but it is dependent on Luleå finding another line that can produce, because the Hedqvist-O’Neill-Eriksson line is alone at the moment and it is too easy for opposing teams to coach against it.