From the way he impressed at a prospects tournament in Traverse City, Michigan to his play at the NHL level, Toronto Maple Leafs forward Pontus Holmberg has become Sheldon Keefe’s best student.
From the way he impressed at a prospects tournament in Traverse City, Michigan to his play at the NHL level, Toronto Maple Leafs forward Pontus Holmberg has become Sheldon Keefe’s best student.
DETROIT — Toronto Maple Leafs head coach Sheldon Keefe had kept tabs from a distance on Pontus Holmberg
He knew about the prospects’ success in the Swedish Hockey League, where he took home playoff MVP honors during the Vaxjo Lakers championship run in 2021. He also saw the forward contribute with the Toronto Marlies for a brief six-game stint the following season where he scored two goals and had four points. But it wasn’t until Keefe saw the player up close at the Maple Leafs’ prospects tournament up in Traverse City, Michigan back in September that he became convinced that the player was going become a contributor to the Maple Leafs this season.
“He is a guy who makes you feel good about putting him on the ice because he is going to do what you are asking of him and make it hard on whoever he is playing against,” Keefe said about Holmberg following his team’s 4-1 victory against the Pittsburgh Penguins on Saturday.
It was Holmberg’s seventh consecutive NHL game and he picked up his second goal of the season, a tally that stood up to be the game-winner. But it’s not his offensive game that has impressed Keefe, but rather his overall play and quick adaptability to the speed of the NHL game.
After mixing in different players into a third line that has been struggling to produce this season, the Maple Leafs called up Holmberg play to center in that spot for his NHL debut on Nov. 2 against the Philadelphia Flyers. Toronto defeated Philly 5-2 in an important game that helped the club snap a season-high four-game losing streak.
In his debut, Holmberg wasn’t the best player, but he wasn’t the worst, either. His 5:04 of ice time spent on the third line with at-the-time struggling forwards Pierre Engvall and Calle Jarnkrok resulted in an expected-goals share of 78 percent, according to NaturalStatTrick.com.
For the first time in a while, Toronto’s third line wasn’t underperforming and Holmberg provided a glimpse of how he could help in the position as a “natural center” as Keefe described him.
But as lineup shuffling continued, Holmberg was bounced out of the spot until Nov. 15 when he dressed against the Penguins for the first time at PPG Paints Arena in Pittsburgh.
Since that game, Holmberg hasn’t given Keefe a reason to take him out of the lineup only continued to improve and the Leafs coach seemed annoyed (in a good way) that he couldn’t provide pointers to his rookie.
“Throughout games, there are things you want to talk to him about and show him [and] you are expecting mistakes and corrections, this guy doesn’t make mistakes,” Keefe said. “He is incredibly smart. Defensively, he is always in the right spot. He doesn’t even have a full grasp of the language here yet or the league, and yet he is picking up our system, our structure and the things we are asking him to do. He is near perfect.”
Holmberg was raised in northern Sweden and thus he’s one of the few who haven’t come over to North America with an understanding of the English language. Yet it doesn’t seem to have phased him.
The 23-year-old Holmberg didn’t get frustrated when he wasn’t putting up points. In his nine games with the Toronto Marlies this season, he has just one goal.
But it’s his two-way play and commitment to defense that has carved out a seemingly permanent role with the Maple Leafs in such a short time.
“Defensively-wise he always seems like he’s above his check, [it] seems annoying [to the opposing players] out there to be honest,” Mitch Marner said of Holmberg. “I watch him the way he’s above people. He’s in pockets. He’s getting [under the] skin on people. He’s done a great job of little holes in the D-zone to get the puck in his hands and makes plays out of our D-zone. And he’s done a great job of finding sorts spots in the o-zone as well.”
Those who know Holmberg aren’t surprised the Maple Leafs’ sixth-round draft pick from 2018 (156th overall) has fit in well.
“I knew what he was capable of and maybe he needed a few games but I knew he was going to be really good in this league,” Maple Leafs goaltender Erik Kallgren said of Holmberg.
Kallgren and Holmberg were teammates on the 2021 championship Lakers team.
But there seems to be one important skill that Holmberg has picked up beyond anything else that has allowed for his success thus far.
“He reads the play well,” Rasmus Sandin said of Holmberg. “A big part of the game is just to read the game and he’s doing excellent.”
When the Maple Leafs conducted their end-of-season media availability in May, general manager Kyle Dubas said he expected Holmberg to be among a few prospects that could challenge for rosters spots for the 2022-23 season. And while Nick Robertson was certainly the No. 1 player expected to do so, it’s evident that Holmberg has, for the time being, moved ahead of him as he’s found his game.
That’s not to suggest that Robertson has peaked in the slightest, but Holmberg’s game is refined for the third-line center role the team had been lacking since they moved David Kampf to a fourth-line spot.
“He gets right into and closes space very well,” Keefe said. “That is a lot of what we talked about with helping slow people down. He gets right in your jersey and in your way.”