The Boston Bruins have had success with Swedish players before, and they added another Monday in Jesper Frödén.
With the offseason now ramping up for the Bruins, the team announced it has signed the 26-year-old winger, who spent the last two seasons with Skelleftea AIK of the Swedish Hockey League.
“The Bruins are very pleased to be adding Jesper to our organization,” Bruins general manager Don Sweeney said in a statement. “We have tracked Jesper’s growth in the SHL where he has proven to be highly productive, competitive, and a smart, two-way player. Jesper is very excited to join a competitive team with the opportunity to compete for a roster spot.”
Frödén is coming off a season in which he was the top scorer on his team, burying 22 goals with 18 assists across 52 games.
He’s a smooth skater with a quick wrister. The raw offensive skills seem like they could play in the NHL, and for being just 5-foot-10, 165 pounds, he has shown the ability to hang around defensively in Sweden and be a hard forward to play against.
That’s important, because counting on that offensive success to simply translate to the United States is a bit of a gamble. Par Lindholm, a teammate of Frödén’s this past season after terminating his contract with Boston, is a perfect example.
Lindholm was a reliable scorer in Sweden, scoring 18 goals with 29 assists in 49 games in his final season with Skelleftea before coming over to North America. And though he was a steady fourth-line center and penalty killer in the NHL, he had just four goals and 15 assists in 106 NHL games.
The other end of that spectrum would be Victor Olofsson, who was among the top scorers in the SHL and proceeded to produce with the Buffalo Sabres.
Point being, the SHL is more equivalent to the AHL than the NHL. Some guys can score in the AHL and NHL, while others only in the lower level. In many cases, there’s no way to tell who can do both until they actually see action in the top flight.
With that in mind, Frödén figures to be a higher-ceiling bottom-six winger. That he’s also known to be a useful defensive player should help his case for a third- or fourth-line spot, even if the scoring doesn’t translate as well to the NHL.
Once Craig Smith bumped up to the second-line right wing, that role on the third unit became a bit of a revolving door. Frödén should be in play for that spot, as well as the fourth-line right wing role with Chris Wagner and Karson Kuhlman. The Bruins recently have not had a surplus of right shots, and Frödén will give them that.
If the finishing ability does end up translating to the NHL, then the Bruins will have found a real gem. But, more realistically, they found a potential bottom-six winger who could be a lineup mainstay that provides some offensive upside with useful enough defense.
