There are few prospects in the Senators organization as intriguing as Mikael Wikstrand.
A smooth skating left shot defenceman, the 21 year old Wikstrand turned heads in Sweden last season. Regularly playing 20+ minutes a game, Wikstrand racked up 20 points in 46 games and quickly solidified himself at the top defensive prospect in the organization.
Selected in the 7th round in the 2012 Entry Draft, not a lot was expected of Wikstrand when the Senators called his name but his game has steadily progressed since his draft year to the point where he seems close to making the jump to the National Hockey League.
Unfortunately his path to the NHL still seems a little unclear.
At this point, the Senators would love to have Wikstrand come over from Sweden and begin his transition to the North American style game. Ideally, he’d spend a season with the Binghamton Senators under Luke Richardson and be able to push for a spot next year or maybe even earn a mid season call up. Wikstrand seems reluctant to go the AHL route though.
A very Swedish article making the rounds on Twitter this morning suggests that if Wikstrand does not make the team out of training camp in a couple weeks, he would return to Sweden for the 2015/2016 season.
This morning, a tweet from Bruce Garrioch (which almost certainly comes from the Sens organization) confirms that it’s up to the Senators to decide where Wikstrand will play hockey this season. Obviously Murray, Dorion and Lee want it to be known that in the end, they call the shots in this situation.
How this all turns out is anyone’s guess at this point.
Considering the log jam on the blueline, Wikstrand is obviously a long shot to make the NHL roster out of camp. If he was willing to go down to Binghamton to start the year, there’s a chance he could get a look mid-season but the comments from Wikstrand to this point show a reluctance to go that route. But as the Senators have made clear, they ultimately have the final say in what happens with Wikstrand at the end of training camp.
Wikstrand is expected to participate in the Rookie Tournament which runs from September 11th to 13th.
This will be an interesting story line to keep an eye on when training camp opens in a couple weeks.
