Arizona Coyotes‘ 1st round pick in the 2012 draft (#27 overall) US-born, Swedish center Henrik Samuelsson(15) gets the nod for his NHL debut and as luck would have it he is opposing his famous hockey dad and assistant coach for New York Rangers, Ulf Samuelsson.
His pa’s team got the best of his squad in a crushing 4-3 come from behind upset but the lanky 6’3″ 210 lbs. power forward had a good personal showing.
He skated 16 shifts for 9:33 total ice and even got a 1:19 on the power play. He also had one shot on net, one hit, one takeaway and was perfect on the face off dot with no points or penalty minutes.
In his first season with affiliate Portland Pirates he’s doing well with 10 goals and 15 assists in 50 AHL games and is a +1 on a bit of an uneven squad.
The 21-year old is used to doing well coming out of two straight WHL Championships with Edmonton Oil Kings in 2013 and 2014, a Memorial Cup and a regular season of more than a point per game production and a postseason with basically a point in each contest.
There’s little doubt that it should be a short trek for this one to be big league ready just like his dad was spending only half a season in the minors before playing 19 years in the show.
Heck, he already had 15 games of pro hockey experience as a teenager with MODO of the SHL before starting his three years of juniors.