Just Who Is Adam Larsson?

In what was the most controversial, talked-about, and polarizing move of the summer, the Edmonton Oilers acquired defenceman Adam Larsson in exchange for Taylor Hall.

After six weeks of dissecting the trade and evaluating each player involved, it seems that a ‘Just Who Is’ post on Adam Larsson is hardly necessary. We will probably keep hearing about him til….well I’m actually not sure. It may be a while until the fans and the media have decided that the Oilers did in fact lose the trade, or who knows? Maybe we end up deciding otherwise.

So just who is Adam Larsson?

Larsson played his 17 and 18 year-old seasons with men in the Swedish Hockey League and was then drafted by the Devils fourth overall in the 2011 draft.

Throughout his draft year Larsson was rated as the best European skater available. But in the end, he was picked after Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Gabriel Landeskog, and Jonathan Huberdeau. Before he even played his first NHL game, scouts talked about Larsson in the same sentence as hall of famer Nicklas Lidstrom. Obviously the comparison was unfair, but the intention was to give an idea about Larsson’s assets.

What are his skills?

Watching New Jersey Devils games, the first thing to notice was how much Devils colour commentator Ken Daneyko loved Adam Larsson. It seemed that he talked about Larsson in every break in the play. And I don’t blame him, there is a lot to talk about. Adam Larsson can skate, he can separate the puck from players like Jamie Benn, and is also very quick with the puck once it’s on his stick.

He’s 6 foot 3, 205 pounds and is able to use his size and positioning extremely well. It’s one thing to have that size, but it’s another to use it. Larsson is able to identify what is happening around him extremely quickly and so it becomes hard for forwards to catch him out of position. Even when it looks like it, he is able to calmly skate back and poke a puck away, or pin his man on the boards.

With the puck, he is a little bit stiff; the same stiffness that Nicklas Lidstrom had with the puck on his stick. It wasn’t poor stickhandling, and definitely not that he was uncomfortable with the puck, but just a little bit stiff around the wrists. Lidstrom was so smart and efficient with the puck that he didn’t need exceptional puck-handling skills. He was accurate with his passes and his shots, and the puck would stick to him as he skated up ice. Idolizing Lidstrom through his childhood probably made Adam Larsson play the same style.

Larsson knows what his best option is right away and can make a hard accurate pass. Skating up he is not as smooth as Erik Karlsson or Oliver Ekman-Larsson, but the puck sticks to his blade, and he is able to dish it out tape to tape while on the fly.

While in the offensive zone, it seems that he may lack offensive creativity. But he can read the play well and can jump deeper into the zone to look for a shot opportunity. An NHL defenceman doesn’t need to be a wizard with the puck to be good offensively. They have to know when and when not to jump into the play, they have to be able to take and make a pass, and they have to be able to get a shot through from the point. Larsson’s skating ability, puck-handling, and processing make it possible for him to be competent in the offensive zone.

So these are his skills, and remember I didn’t call him Lidstrom, I said they have the same style.  

Now, what can we expect from him?

When a player of Taylor Hall’s calibre is traded, the return is expected to be just as good. But in this case, as of now anyway, the two sides of the equation just don’t match. Obviously the GM is going to back the trade even if it doesn’t seem even while the fans are going to match him up to what Taylor Hall should have landed, which is an offensive defenceman who can also play the point on the powerplay.

This is the part to worry about. The expectation to be the offensive defenceman and the point man on the powerplay should not be placed on him. The Oilers just need a defenceman who can play against the other team’s top lines. That is Larsson. He should not feel the pressure of looking like the top defenceman of some of the other teams in the league.

Todd McLellan was able to give an idea of what to expect from Larsson this year:

“Do I think the offence is there with Adam? Yes, I do. But for now we have to let him get comfortable first and that’s playing big minutes, penalty-killing minutes and then we can work him into other roles.”

He also compared his role to the role that Marc-Edouard Vlasic played for McLellan in San Jose, and that means that we should expect Larsson to play the important minutes against other teams’ best players.

Should he get a bigger role on offense, he has the skills to handle it. Larsson will be a very important piece for the Oilers moving forward. He will slot into the top of the right hand side of the defence depth chart, a void that hasn’t properly been filled since Jeff Petry was traded away. Based on Larsson’s skills, and Connor McDavid’s skills, a 30 point season is within range for this season. But if he just plays the other teams top lines to a draw, that would be all the Oilers need. And let’s not forget that he’s entering his 5th NHL season. He has time to get more comfortable, and his contract means that he’s going to be around for a long time.