A week looking at Red Wings prospects in Sweden: Marco Kasper’s goal, scenes from Ängelholm
ÄNGELHOLM, Sweden — They call it the Scania Derby. Rögle and Malmö are two hockey clubs based in Sweden’s southernmost county and, in short, they hate each other.
Ängelholm, home of Rögle, is a small town, but a passionate one when it comes to its hockey club. On a matchday, even hours before a game, you’ll see the club’s striking green scarves draped around people walking through town and driving past in cars, in windows and in hotel bars. That was certainly the case on Saturday, at least, with their rival in town and the buzz palpable.
I hadn’t known about this rivalry when I booked a trip to see two of the Red Wings’ top prospects, Marco Kasper and William Wallinder, play last week. But it didn’t take long for me to understand how important the rivalry was to these programs. When I met Kasper on my first day in town, he joked, “shouldn’t lose that game, because then we might have to stay home the next day.”
He was joking, of course, but the rivalry is very real. When I told the team’s venerable equipment manager, Frederik “Fidde” Andersen, that I would be staying Saturday night, he simply said, “Then you’ll see rock and roll here.”
As I learned last year, when I visited Sweden for the first timeis the SHL atmosphere completely different from that NHL. Supporter culture in the area includes those ubiquitous scarves, club-specific songs and constant in-game chants.
But for a derby game like this, the energy reaches a whole new level. In a toilet last Saturday, I saw a piece of paper with a Malmö logo in the urinal tray — and that was only in the bathroom.
Game time at Catena Arena, where Red Wings prospect Marco Kasper and William Wallinder and Rögle will take on hated rival Malmö.
The vibes in the arena are immaculate pic.twitter.com/N5s5riwVoA
— Max Bultman (@m_bultman) 21 January 2023
The point is that it was an outstanding environment — even though Malmö is the SHL’s last club, the league’s relegation structure meant that they had as much at stake as Rögle. And you never really know how a young player will react to such conditions until you see for yourself.
But just two minutes after the puck drop, Kasper came flying through the neutral zone, held his own, then collected a pass from teammate Riley Sheen and coolly placed it under the crossbar for the game’s first goal.
Marco Kasper! 🚨
Speed through the neutral zone and a clean finish when Kasper opens the scoring just minutes into the match!#LGRW pic.twitter.com/lNIZJQhSos
— IcehockeyGifs (@IcehockeyG) 21 January 2023
In retrospect, it was perhaps no surprise. When the two clubs played at the end of November, Kasper had two points, including the winner of the game with about five minutes left. But with his team coming off a tough loss early in the week — which included a forgettable performance from himself, individually — Kasper stepped up under the bright lights in a big way.
“First shot on goal, good jump — I think he played with a lot of speed in his game tonight,” Rögles coach Cam Abbott said afterward.
Overall, Abbott wasn’t very happy with his team’s showing in the rivalry game, despite a 2-1 shootout victory. He’ll take the two points, of course, but added, “none of our lines were really connected, so he played a lot of the puck as well, defensively. He’s stepped up in different situations again this year.”
In this one, he led all Rögle forwards by playing almost 21 minutes. It speaks to the confidence he has gained this year as an 18-year-old in a tough, professional league. At the same time, Rögle’s overall ice-time leader was Wallinder, the Red Wings’ Other top prospect who practices his craft in Ängelholm. Wallinder didn’t get on the score sheet in Saturday’s game, but he showed many of the elements that have seen his stock rise this season.
When red wings drafted him, he was a big, raw bundle of tools. Now he looks just like a pro — with his excellent skating and quick hands still popping in his 6-foot-4 frame, but with a growing understanding of how to take what’s given, too. Like Kasper, he had some unforgettable moments in the club’s Thursday loss. But under Saturday’s bright lights, he held his own and showed some sizzling flashes as well.
I’ll have plenty more on both prospects in the coming weeks, after spending the week getting to know them and their games. But the bottom line: Kasper, Detroit’s first-round pick in 2022, and Wallinder, a second-round pick in 2020, are both well on their way to becoming Red Wings after their time in Rögle.
If the club’s name sounds familiar, by the way, that’s because it’s here Moritz Seider came for his final year of the pre-NHL season during the pandemic. And suffice it to say, he left a big impression here.
While I was in town, however, I had to solve a little mystery that has been circling the back of my mind for nearly two years. Before Seider debuted, I wrote one story about his years at Rögle, where his combination of bone-breaking hits and highly efficient two-way play helped Rögle to the SHL finals. And when he reported it, several of his teammates recalled that Seider kept a tub of candy in his locker — allegedly so he wouldn’t eat it all himself.
But all the details were hard to pin down. I never got the store’s name, and I couldn’t really imagine what a candy tub meant – I even referred to it as a “jar” at one point in the story.
Of course I had to try to find out more. And since Ängelholm is quite a small town, it only took me one day. On the city’s central street is Hemmakväll, a candy shop that — true to the description — was lined wall to wall with bulk candy. Wonderful candy too – bright colors, all kinds of flavors and huge. And right at the entrance? A shelf with pods – think of the kind you get popcorn in at a cinema – in all different sizes. This must be the place.
I grabbed the smallest tub they offered, and filled it to the brim with all kinds of candy we don’t even have (as far as I know) in the US. And readers, it was incredible. I don’t know exactly how much candy I put in that bucket, but even for the smallest size, it’s more than I was comfortable consuming in a week. But it’s hard to stop once you start. Needless to say, the whole story about the tub of candy makes perfect sense to me.
There was also one more curiosity I had to investigate – although this one I didn’t know about until I got here.
Ängelholm is by the sea and between the beach and Rögle’s Catena Arena is a clearing in the forest with a stone monument over an alleged flying saucer. The legend goes that a man named Gösta Carlsson saw a UFO land at that location in 1946.
Believe it or not, Carlsson went on to found a company that used purified pollen extracts for medicinal purposes — reportedly inspired by the aliens — get the nickname “The Pollen King” or “The Pollen King”. And with that wealth he helped raise Rögle’s position in the 1960s. It made the monument well worth a walk on a crisp winter morning, hours before the derby match was due to start.
The point is that there was a lot to see during the last six days in Sweden, both on and off the ice. And I’ll have a lot more to share about Kasper, Wallinder and others soon.
In the meantime, though, I need to figure out how to get away with costing a bucket of candy.
(Top image by Marco Kasper: Allison Farrand / For The Athletic)