Canadiens Top Prospects Countdown: #4 Mattias Norlinder

Montreal Canadiens general manager has compiled a long list of prospects. We are counting down the top 30.

Montreal Canadiens general manager Marc Bergevin has focused on the draft for the past three years to build up his prospect pool. He loaded up on picks for the past three years and has another boatload of selections to make next year.

This has led to the Canadiens having a great group of prospects. With the offseason well underway and next season still more of a question mark than anything else, we are digging deep into the future of the franchise.

So, we have been counting down the Canadiens Top 30 prospects.

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This list so far looks like this: 30th Jack Gorniak, 29th Jacob LeGuerrier, 28th Otto Leskinen, 27th Rafael Harvey-Pinard, 26th Jack Smith, 25th Jacob Olofsson, 24th Lukas Vejdemo, 23rd Alexander Gordin, 22nd Blake Biondi, 21st Rhett Pitlick, 20th Joni Ikonen, 19th Brett Stapley, 18th Joel Teasdale, 17th Gianni Fairbrother, 16th Cam Hillis, 15th Luke Tuch, 14th Josh Brook, 13th Jan Mysak, 12th Sean Farrell, 11th Cale Fleury, 10th Noah Juulsen, 9th Jayden Struble, 8th Jesse Ylonen, 7th Jordan Harris, 6th Ryan Poehling and 5th Kaiden Guhle.

That brings us to number four on our countdown where we find Mattias Norlinder. The Swedish defenceman was ranked the third best Habs prospect by both Teddy Elliott and Sebastien High while myself and Scott Cowan placed him 6th on our lists.

What Norlinder does really well is join the offence from the blue line. He is a terrific skater who can win races in a straight line but he may be even better on his edges. He can change directions without losing a gear and beats defenders by deceptively changing speeds before accelerating into open ice.

The defensive side of his game isn’t a huge problem but it is more of a work in progress than his already mature offensive instincts. At 6’0″ and 179 pounds, the 20 year old defenceman isn’t undersized and won’t get pushed around in the corners, but he isn’t a physical specimen like Kaiden Guhle or a physical freak like Alexander Romanov.

It will be his offensive game that carries Norlinde through the Habs system and it has done him well thus far.

The Kramfors, Sweden native was drafted by the Canadiens in the third round of the 2019 NHL Draft. His arrival with the Habs was actually a result of the Max Pacioretty trade. Pacioretty was sent to the Vegas Golden Knights in September of 2018 for Tomas Tatar, Nick Suzuki and a second round pick. That pick was later moved for third and fifth round picks and Montreal selected Norlinder with that third rounder.

After being selected by the Habs, Norlinder began playing for Modo in Allsvenskan. He had a great season, scoring seven goals and 18 points in 36 games. He was named the best Junior aged player in Allsvenskan which is basically the AHL of Sweden.

This season, Norlinder is playing in SHL which is Sweden’s best league. The Habs top level prospect has just one goal and three points in 14 games thus far while playing for Frolunda. While the team is having success in the standings, they aren’t an extremely high scoring squad, averaging just over 2.5 goals per game. That can make it tough for a rookie defenceman to make his mark offensively.

However, with his elite skating and ability to read the play offensively and know exactly when to jump in and join the rush, it shouldn’t take much longer for Norlinderto start putting up more points. The SHL isn’t a very high scoring league and isn’t known for giving young players big roles right away.

Norlinder has been taking on a top four role and received some top power play time already this season. It shouldn’t be much longer before he is hitting the scoresheet far more regularly for Folunda. He is under contract for this season and next in Sweden, so he should be making his North American debut in the 2022-23 season.

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With a few pro seasons already under his belt at that time, it won’t take a lot of AHL seasoning before Norlinder proves to be a regular with the Montreal Canadiens.

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