Like so many aspiring NHL stars, Calgary Flames defence prospect Axel Hurtig had been dreaming of someday representing his country at the world junior hockey championship.
That is, when the tournament wasn’t impacting his sleep patterns.
“You grew up watching the world juniors and whenever it was in North America, you’d set an alarm in the middle of the night to watch Sweden,” said Hurtig, selected by the Flames in the seventh round of the 2023 NHL Draft and already home-based at the Saddledome as a stalwart for the WHL’s Calgary Hitmen. “I’d wake up at 2 or 3 a.m. to watch Sweden play, especially when they were playing Canada or U.S.A., those special games.”
Hurtig will be living that dream over the next week and change, this time skating in the world-junior spotlight rather than watching the action in his pyjamas. He’s the only Flames prospect participating in this latest edition of the annual holiday showdown.
If you only catch the highlights, or if you only check the scoring summaries, you shouldn’t expect to see a lot of Hurtig. The 19-year-old would be first to admit that.
This dude doesn’t do end-to-end rushes. If a shootout is required to settle one of the medal-round matchups, he won’t be getting a tap on the shoulder.
Instead, Hurtig specializes in some of those less-heralded details of the game, the stuff that earns the trust of coaches, the admiration of teammates and groans of appreciation from fans, those pained-but-proud reactions that you hear after somebody drops in front of a sizzling slapper.
With the Hitmen, Hurtig draws shutdown duties against opposing top lines, which makes it especially impressive that he currently leads his crew with a plus-22 rating. He can do it two ways as a defender — he has a good stick but can also, at 6-foot-5 and 208 pounds, play a punishing physical brand.
Hurtig should be a staple for Team Sweden in shorthanded situations, where he’ll eat pucks with the same enthusiasm that some of us snack on shortbread cookies during the commercial breaks.
“I feel like my type of D-men are slowly moving away from the game,” Hurtig told Postmedia before departing for the world junior tournament in Ottawa. “There’s a lot of skill out there nowadays. But I feel like if you’re going to win, you need some guys to do the dirty work, too. It’s not always fun, but it’s gotta be done.
“Just my attitude to the game, I’m a team guy. I block shots, play PK, and I take pride in that. I feel like the coaches know what they get from me. It’s nothing flashy, but play my minutes and do them hard.”
Balancing the blue-line
Flames fans were understandably disappointed that first-rounder Zayne Parekh was among the final cuts from Canada’s world-junior roster. He is, after all, the biggest name on Calgary’s suddenly long list of promising blue-line prospects.
While guys like Parekh, Hunter Brzustewicz, Henry Mews, Etienne Morin and Jeremie Poirier have gobs of offensive upside, a could-be contender also needs to develop some stay-at-home sorts. Calgary’s current pipeline includes several who fit that description, too — Artem Grushnikov, Yan Kuznetsov and Ilya Solovyov with the AHL’s Wranglers, plus Hurtig and Eric Jamieson in the WHL. (Jamieson, a sixth-rounder this past summer, is co-captain of the league-leading Everett Silvertips.)
Hurtig has so far contributed two goals and five assists in 28 outings with the Hitmen. Asked if there are any current NHLers who he tries to emulate, he mentioned Adam Larsson and Mattias Ekholm and then offered an apology-of-sorts, knowing he is not supposed to be saying nice things about any of the Edmonton Oilers.
“Everyone wants to look at points and what you do offensively,” said Flames general manager Craig Conroy. “But that’s not what he does. He shuts down opposing players. He plays that defensive style. He’s out there on the penalty-kill.
“And you need to have the offset, you know? Maybe you have an offensive guy paired with a guy who’s in more of a shutdown role. I think of Robyn Regehr when he was here, and that was more what he needed to do. As compared to Dion (Phaneuf), who was putting up 20 goals. To be a good team, you need that balance and I think Axel brings that. If you talk to the Hitmen, they’re more than happy with everything he’s done. It’s exciting for us. He’s a big man and he can move.”
He can move the puck too, which is an absolute must for a modern-day shutdown defenceman.
“Here’s a big, long guy that plays hard every night,” said Flames director of player development Ray Edwards of Hurtig. “He’s not an offensive threat in terms of creating offence in the O-zone, but what Axel does do is he moves the puck simply. I don’t want people to think this is who he is, but he reminds me of Chris Tanev that way. Chris just made the right play with the puck. He’d just get the puck going by making the simple, smart play. And that’s what Axel does. He doesn’t try to overthink it. He’s not one of those guys that doesn’t like the first option and looks for the second and the third and then he’s too slow so it gets taken away. He sees the play and he makes the play.
“But what Axel does really well is he’s a tough guy to play against one-on-one because he has a great stick and he has a smart hockey mind.”
Smart cookie that he is, Hurtig was early to embrace the idea that his key to future success was as a force in his own zone.
“When I moved away when I was 15, my coach told me, ‘You’re going to get paid in the D zone.’ And I was like, ‘Yeah, good enough for me,’ ” he recounted with a wide grin. “So I started really working on my D zone. I was big, too, so I grew into that. And then I moved up to play U-20 really early and I wasn’t developed really good with the puck yet. So trying to find my spot there, it was playing hard defensive minutes. And then I didn’t play national team until U-18s so when they came knocking, I played D minutes there too. It’s kind of got me where I’m at so far … ”
And where he wants to be eventually.
“I know who I’m going to be if I’m going to make the NHL, and that’s going to be a big, hard defenceman that blocks shots and a good first pass,” Hurtig reasoned. “I’m just trying to get as good as I can on that. Of course, I work on my blue-line skill and try to get better at that too, because that’s an important part of the game. But I know where my strengths are.”
A seventh-rounder is never going to be considered a sure-thing, but Hurtig is determined to do all he can to eventually suit up for the organization that made him the No. 208 overall pick in 2023.
It’s why he was so excited about joining the Hitmen, knowing there would be extra attention from Flames’ management and constant tips from the development staff as he transitioned to the smaller ice surface in North America. It’s why he also spent most of the summer in Calgary, training with the big-league strength and conditioning coaches.
“He studies the game, good hockey IQ, a great teammate, wants to get better … He checks all those boxes,” Edwards praised. “So you know you’re going to get exactly what you ask of him.”
The Swedish coaches can expect the same.
Hailing from Högås, Hurtig has previously donned the Tre Kronor — or ‘Three Crowns’ — crest at the 2022 World Junior A Challenge and the 2023 Under-18 World Championship.
He earned a bronze medal at his first international tournament, a silver at his second. There seems to be an encouraging trend there …
The Swedes will open their world-junior schedule with a Boxing Day battle against the Slovaks (10 a.m. MT, TSN). They will also face Kazakhstan, Switzerland and Czechia during round-robin action. They’ll be aiming to finish in first place in their pool and hopefully avoid a quarterfinal clash with any of the top contenders in a stacked Group A, which features Canada, Finland and the U.S.
Should the Swedes advance to the gold-medal game, it is scheduled for 5:30 p.m. MT on Sunday, Jan. 5. That means that the puck drops at 1:30 a.m. in Hurtig’s home country.
Any other year, he would have been setting an alarm.
“It’s an opportunity not a lot of people get, and I’m really honoured that they picked me,” Hurtig said. “I’ve played a few tournaments with them now and it’s always a great experience to put the crowns on and play for your nationality. I take a lot of pride playing for Sweden. It’s a big thing.
“When we put that on, it’s all about winning.”
As his Hitmen teammates will attest, as the Flames’ scouting staff noticed during his draft year and as international hockey fans should see over the next week and change, this towering teen is willing to do whatever it takes to win.
“Not many players, at any level, understand exactly what they need to be and take pride in the identity that they’re supposed to have,” said Paul McFarland, who is in his first season as bench boss for the Hitmen after spending the previous three winters as an assistant coach in the NHL. “(Hurtig) really works at his game, on the other parts that he wants to improve on, but I think he takes a lot of pride in the things that he knows he has to do well. That’s the biggest compliment you can give him — he’s all about the team and not about individual stats.
“I think he’ll be a great addition for Team Sweden at the world juniors.”