Ekholm's snub from Team Sweden more puzzling after hot stretch with Oilers

EDMONTON — Have you ever had a friend, someone you really get along with, who just couldn’t stand your other friend — someone you also really get along with?

That’s what this Mattias Ekholm situation seems like with Swedish head coach Sam Hallam, who on Tuesday named Boston defenceman Hampus Lindholm to Sweden’s Olympic roster as a replacement for the injured Jonas Brodin.

Not Ekholm, who is fifth in scoring (6-20-26) and has the best plus/minus (plus-18) of any Swedish defenceman in the NHL this season. But Lindholm, who has three goals and 16 points on the season and is minus-10 with the Bruins.

We’d heard for months — ever since the 4 Nations Face-Off, when Ekholm was sick as a dog throughout — that Hallam was unlikely to choose Ekholm for the team. And that there was a disconnect between coach and player.

But after the Oilers’ usual slumberous start, since Nov. 1, Ekholm’s game has been exquisite. I guess it just seemed like good sense would prevail, and Ekholm would take his place among Sweden’s top eight.

To wit (all stats since Nov. 1):

• Ekholm is a plus-24. The next best Team Sweden D-man (Oliver Ekman-Larsson) is plus-five.
• He has five goals, 15 assists and 20 points (all fifth among Swedish defencemen in the NHL).
• Ekholm plays 21:12 per night, more than he’d likely get in Milan, but he logs those minutes for a top NHL team in Edmonton under the glare of a Canadian hockey spotlight. He plays all the most important minutes — other than first-unit power play time — and is battle-tested on the playoff journey to two straight Stanley Cup Finals.

He’s 35, sure. But he’s also six-foot-five and 225 pounds, and still moves well.

Without asking Hallam, we suspect he’d disagree on that last part, likely the critical area in a tournament that will be played at lightning pace.

It’s just such a puzzler for me, that a hockey coach would look at Ekholm — the person, the player — and decide, “No, we’re better off without him on our team.”

Then an injury occurs, and the sentiment doesn’t shift an iota.

“Still can’t make our top eight, sorry.”

Let’s step back.

I’ve not known Hallam for long. Met him a few times along the trail and always enjoyed our chats. Once, through a Swedish colleague, I had the pleasure of being seated around a table at a little Italian restaurant that included Hallam and a few others. And, yes, there might have been a beer afterward.

Here is what I gleaned:

He is uber smart. Great sense of humour, a doting father, and an up-and-coming young coach on the international scene. I fully expect him to be an NHL head coach one day.

He evaluates hockey players, as far as I could tell in our few hours together, much the same way I do.

Character is important, but less so if the player’s game is deteriorating. Intangibles matter to Hallam, though. He respects and is advised by analytics, was my take, but he is not consumed or entirely directed by them.

I have great respect for Hallam. You’d have to ask him if he returns that sentiment.

Are we friends? We’re friend-ly, how about that?

Then there is Ekholm.

I’d say I know him much better than Hallam, as I first (wisely, if I do say so) identified Ekholm’s dressing room stall as the source of many sage and eloquent quotes/thoughts when I was covering teams that met the Nashville Predators in the playoffs roughly a decade ago.

Since then, Ekholm has come to Edmonton, where he has become — among other things, for the local media — "The Explainer." Ekholm knows how to let us — and by extension, you — into what’s happening with the Oilers. Good or bad, without singling out a teammate or betraying confidence.

It’s my educated guess that, on the bench or in the intermission dressing room, Ekholm is the first to identify when Edmonton begins to stray from their winning game, to the looser, more care-free approach that sometimes wins, sometimes loses.

He is, we’d be willing to bet, a big stakeholder of the Oilers’ collective defensive conscience, alongside Darnell Nurse. Which is no small role on a Stanley Cup contender.

Ekholm has also become the perfect No. 2 for one of the game’s most dynamic No. 1s in Evan Bouchard. It requires the ability to play an offensive level that does not constrict Bouchard’s freedom, but also be there when Bouchard’s high-wire act stumbles.

And if you’re going to play 22 minutes a night in Edmonton as the pairing that plays the most with Connor McDavid’s line, you can not simply stay at home and leave the offence to others. As such, he had a hat trick on Monday versus Anaheim.

“He's a great player, all-around,” teammate Leon Draisaitl said. “He knows when to jump into the rush. He's extremely smart, he's got a bomb of a shot, he knows when to use it. … And his (shot) placement is elite.”

Here in Edmonton, Ekholm has become the Brent Seabrook to Bouchard’s Duncan Keith. He is Paul Coffey’s Charlie Huddy. The Don Sweeney to Ray Bourque. The Devon Toews to Cale Makar.

Alas, he will not be the Mattias Ekholm to an Erik Karlsson or Rasmus Andersson over in Milan, which is unfortunate.

This was to be his final hope to play in the Olympics, something Ekholm had never done.

It’s a kick in the kroner, really.