Oilers notebook: David Tomasek flying under the radar. Where does Ekholm fit on Team Sweden?
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Tomasek once played junior in OHL Belleville for one-time Oilers head coach George Burnett, and before that as a kid in Michigan with current Carolina defenceman Jalen Chatfield, but he is 29-years-old and has never played a single minute of pro in North America. He has played in his home country, in Sweden, Finland and Russia but never over here.
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Bringing over older Euros is always tricky—Tomasek's Farjestads' teammate Joakim Nygard didn't pan out here, in part because he couldn't stay healthy—but Tomasek signed a one-year, one-way $1.2 million deal with Oilers. Unless Tomasek, more playmaker than shooter, struggles at camp, he'll be in the top 9 somewhere. He's certainly not coming over to play farther down the lineup
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'Offensively, Tomasek was in a league of his own during his tenure in Sweden. Very slick and skilled. How that translates to the NHL will be interesting to see,' said Swedish hockey insider Uffe Bodin.
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Tomasek, a right-shot centre/winger, had two strong Swedish regular seasons but they did not translate in either of his two playoff years with Farjestads so that bears watching. But they were small sample sizes, just 10 total playoff games (three points).
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'I see Tomasek as a winger in the NHL. I'm not totally sure this is a good comparison but a Kuzmenko type (offensive support) player,' said Zanier.
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We know Mattias Ekholm's playing with partner Evan Bouchard here, but will the Oilers top pairing left D, be on Sweden's Olympic team in Italy next February as one of their eight defencemen? He absolutely should be but Ekholm and Swedish national coach Sam Hallam had a falling out late at the 4 Nations Face-Off tournament.
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Ekholm is a tremendous player when healthy but fences may need to be mended.
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Hallam was making the ailing Ekholm a 4 Nations scratch for the final round-robin game against the U.S. in Boston this past February but he got in as a seventh D, playing nine minutes, when forwards Mika Zibanejad and Rickard Rakell came down sick before the game.
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