Carl Grundström, whose SHL season ended late last week, has been named to the Swedish national team for an upcoming pair of games against Slovakia on April 5 -6.
The roster also includes last year’s Vegas draft pick Erik Brännström and Buffalo pick Rasmus Asplund. From the 2016 draft is Penguins pick Linus Ölund. Notably absent is Rasmus Dahlin, who is expected to go first overall in the coming draft. Dahlin was named to the Olympic team this year, but seems to be getting this series of games off.
Next up is another pair of friendlies against Denmark in that country on April 12-14.
After these two sets of games, there are two segments of the Euro Hockey Tour that got bumped to late season because of the Olympics. The first, the Carlson Hockey Games is in Pardubice, Czechia and Yaroslavl, Russia.
These games run from April 18-22 with the first one between Sweden and Russia in Yaroslavl. The rest of the series, with teams from Finland and Czechia as well, is all in Pardubice.
Following that are the Sweden Hockey Games, played this year in Stockholm and Södertälje with the opener in Finland. They run from April 26-29. The usual four teams, Sweden, Finland, Russia and Czechia are involved.
The World Championships begin in May in Denmark.
Yegor Korshkov, meanwhile, has also been called up to the current Russian national team. They will add and subtract players from it as the KHL playoffs come to a close. The entire actual Olympic roster this year is still in those playoffs, barring only Sergei Mozyakin.
The Russian team is set to play Germany in two friendlies in Sochi, Russia on April 6-7. Korshkov will appear in those two games.
After that, the first game of the Carlson Hockey Games is in Yaroslavl, so it seems likely that the four players, including Korshkov, on this version of the Russian roster who are from Lokomotiv Yaroslavl will be there to play in front of their home crowd.
If that happens, we might just get to see Yegor Korshkov vs Carl Grundström.
The chances of either of these players making the cut to the actual World Championship team may well depend on how many NHLers and KHLers decline to participate this year. The Russians won the Olympic gold medal, so it’s not a given they will send any of that group to Worlds. The Swedes who were on their Olympic roster, however, might want a shot at redemption.
We might be disappointed that we won’t get to see either player on the Marlies, at least not yet, but when the national team calls, you have to answer, don’t you?
