It’s Anaheim Ducks center Leo Carlsson’s 20th birthday. The 2023 second-overall pick is now one season’s worth of games into his NHL career.
Ducks’ Carlsson Receives Praise Following 4 Nations Selection
Through 82 games, Carlsson has tallied 19 goals and 22 assists for 41 points, an exact .5 points per game pace.
His 19 goals before his 20th birthday are the most scored in Ducks’ franchise history by a teenager and the third most in NHL history scored by a Swedish teenager, trailing only Lucas Raymond (20) and Gabriel Landeskog (22).
Carlsson has missed 33 games to this point in his career due to various injuries and a game management plan to start the 2023-24 season in which he would only play two games per week.
The idea behind the game management was to allow him to build strength in-season, recover, study the NHL game at a distance, and avoid hitting a “rookie wall” later in the season.
The approach to starting Carlsson’s career was unorthodox, but the parties involved seem encouraged by the returns and confident that he can take the next steps in his development to realize his potential.
He was drafted with the highest selection the Ducks franchise has ever had after posting a top-five draft year from any SHL player in history. He was one of four players with franchise-altering potential available in the 2023 draft (Connor Bedard, Adam Fantilli, Matvei Michkov) and was/is the Ducks top prospect in franchise history.
Now that Carlsson has played a rookie season’s amount of games in the NHL, it would seem fair to evaluate his progression as that potential cornerstone piece set to be the focal point of the organization as they hope to transition into contention.
The Polished
When he was selected, Carlsson was evaluated as more of a plotting, 200-foot center who could potentially impact a game like Anze Kopitar or Sasha Barkov.
Angling, anticipation, timing, and disruption are key ingredients to how Leo Carlsson can turn astute defense into quick-strike offense going the other way
Here are three minutes of Carlsson telling opponents, “Yeah, that’s my puck now”#flytogether pic.twitter.com/fGoQUb5OP0
— Patrick Present (@PatrickCPresent) November 15, 2024
His skating was his perceived weakness, but from the second he stepped on the ice, he was flying through neutral zones into offensive zones and making highly skilled plays downhill at high speeds with the puck on his stick. He’s a far more electric player than he was given credit for coming into his rookie…