Oilers notebook: David Tomasek flying under the radar. Where does Ekholm fit on Team Sweden?

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Maybe the most under-the-radar Edmonton Oilers’ training camp story is where Czech-born, Swedish Hockey League scoring champion David Tomasek fits in the pecking order.

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.

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

“He should be a 4-9 (top 9 forward). I can’t see him being a fourth-liner. He’s not a checking type,” said former Oilers goalie Mike Zanier, a long-time broadcaster in Swedish League Vaxjo.

“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.

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).

“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.

Where does Ekholm fit on Team Sweden?

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.

Ekholm is a tremendous player when healthy but fences may need to be mended.

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.

Ekholm, 35, who had a tough second half of the season with an undisclosed lower-body injury which limited him to the last playoff game against Dallas and all six of the final against Florida, understandably wasn’t happy with the thought of being scratched at the 4 Nations by Hallam, also in charge of their Olympic squad.

“I understand that someone has to sit. It’s nothing strange. Then I may not agree with the excuses or the reason for the benching. Maybe not 110 per cent but that’s how is it in the business,” Ekholm told Swedish reporters back then, saying he would like a longer conversation with Hallam.

“I’m not giving any justification here. It’s something that stays between us. I don’t think any player who doesn’t get picked for a match is happy and you shouldn’t be,” Hallam told the paper SportBladet, at the time.

Keep an eye on this Swede

How good is Samuel Jonsson?

The 21-year-old Swedish goalie was MVP in the Allsvenskan, the league below the SHL, this past season and the fifth-round 2022 Oilers draft pick has seen his stock rise dramatically on the organization’s prospect depth chart.

He’ll be at Oilers camp and challenging for a back-up job to local product Matt Tomkins in Bakersfield this season, likely against Connor Ungar.

The Oilers goalie prospect cupboard is loaded with goalies. Seems like they take a goalie every draft. It’s four years in a row, if counting. There was Jonsson is 2022, Nathaniel Day (sixth-round) in 2023, Eemil Vinni (second-round) in 2024 and fellow Finn Daniel Salonen (sixth-round) in 2025.

But Jonsson’s skill-set is such that they chose to not make an offer this June to their farm No. 1 last year, Olivier Rodrigue, 25, and he became a free-agent. He was the playoff backup when Calvin Pickard hurt his leg against Vegas in round 2 but clearly they didn’t feel he was going to be an NHLer except as a call-up.

No other NHL team has signed Rodrigue yet, a surprise because of his age.

How far away is Jonsson from the Oilers?

Betting is, a few years.

Remember when the Oilers rightfully took grief for passing on another Swedish goalie Jesper Wallstedt in round 1 of the 2022 draft, taking Xavier Bourgault, instead. Well Wallstedt, a phenom World U20 junior, has played five NHL games for Minnesota and he turns 23 in November. Last season in Iowa he had an .879 save percentage, a 3.59 goal average and was 9-14-4.

So, maybe we should take a deep breath on the 6’3”, left-catching Jonsson. Stu Skinner, 26, played 157 minor-league games (AHL and ECHL), including 44 in Wichita in the ECHL, before he was a true NHLer.

“Let’s watch him in camp and you’ll get a better idea. Euro goalies struggle early in NA (North America) because there are better shooters and they shoot from everywhere. In Sweden, they wait for the perfect opportunity,” said Zanier.

The Allsvenskan may seem like the SHL’s version of the NHL’s AHL.

But, it’s not. As sterling as Jonsson was last season (1.87 goal average), that league is  farther down the North American ladder than AHL.

“More like the ECHL,” said Zanier.

“His team (Bofors) was a top 2-3 team last season.”

“He’s a big goalie who moves pretty well. Looking forward to watching his development in Bakersfield the next few years,” said Zanier.

This ‘n that

• Mattias Janmark’s best work the last two years has been in the playoffs where he has seven goals and 12 points in 47 games after six goals and 30 points in 151 regular-season games. Oilers coach Kris Knoblauch trusts Janmark’s defensive hockey smarts to the nth degree, putting him on the ice late in games to protect leads and using him on the PK, so he’s extremely valuable but there’s a numbers game here. Janmark’s $1.45 million cap hit for the next two seasons as a fourth-liner is problematic on a team with only $235,000 in cap space. Maybe free-agent signee Curtis Lazar can do the same job at half the price…
• Long-time NHL assistant coach Perry Pearn just re-upped for a second year with the Chinese Hockey Federation to coach their men’s national team. It’s a quixotic job because there’s not much of a talent pool in China, but the Federation is keen to get better. Pearn’s previous job working for the Japanese Hockey Federation did afford him more skilled players but they were adverse to spend money. With his hockey savvy, Pearn, who is running his highly-successful 3-on-3 camp for the pros for two weeks later this month, should actually be working for an NHL team (like the Oilers?) as a Western Canada pro scout….
• Former Oil Kings’ coach Luke Pierce did investigate junior opportunities and was intrigued by some, but has decided to take a year off from bench work and work at other hockey stuff to expand his portfolio…..
• Oilers top Russian prospect winger Max Berezkin, who will likely come over to North America next season, has a new head coach at Lokomotiv Yaroslavl—Bob Hartley. Hartley, who retired from coaching a few years ago, is reportedly getting $2 million US to go back behind the bench.

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