Thursday, May 03, 2012

Draft Profiles: Hampus Lindholm


Hey everyone, Will here. Shelly and Emily invited me to do a guest post for them, so here it is. If you’re interested in reading more of what I have to say, follow me on Twitter: @sidstache. (And if you haven’t followed @shell871 and @leafloveremily yet, you’re a loser. Go do that.)

Anyway, this post is the first in a series of player profiles we’ll be doing here at GS for major NHL draft prospects as June 22 closes in. A brief note on the guy I chose to profile: I wanted to profile a non-junior player, since my good Canadian friends Shelly and Emily are surely more familiar with most of them than I am. I also wanted to profile a defenseman, since I play the position myself and am somewhat more familiar with evaluating it than the forward position (and certainly the goalie position). So basically, I decided to profile the top-rated European defenseman in the draft. And without further ado, here he is…



Name: Hampus Lindholm, D

Birthdate: Jan. 20, 1994

Size: 6’2.5”, 196 lbs

Shoots: Left

Current Team: Rogle BK (SuperElit, Allsvenskan)

Prospect Rankings: 4th, European skaters (NHLCSB); 32nd overall
(thehockeywriters.com), 41st overall (thescoutingreport.org)

Scouting Report: There isn’t much information or tape out there on Hampus Lindholm, but I’ll give this my best effort. Lindholm is an outstanding skater, with little work to do in that area; this is the main reason he is a top-50 prospect. Lindholm’s primary use to an NHL team will be as a puck-moving, offensively-minded defenseman. As noted before, his skating ability is elite. He also possesses an accurate shot from the point, and is equally comfortable using a wrister or a slapper from the back end. His passing ability is that of a solid, but not elite, puck-mover. He tended not to be used on the PP for Rogle’s Allsvenskan team (likely due to his youth relative to the rest of the league), but he certainly profiles as a player who could potentially fill the role at some point in the NHL.