Kraken D-man
On Tuesday afternoon the Seattle Kraken announced the re-signing of depth defenseman Gustav Olofsson to a two-year, two-way contract that will pay him $775,000 at the NHL level and $350,000 while playing in the American Hockey League. The 28-year-old lefty from Boras, Sweden played in three games for the Kraken last season without recording a point.
The 6-foot-2, 190-pounder previously played 56 NHL games with the MInnesota Wild, the team that drafted him in the 2nd-round back in 2013, and three more with the Montreal Canadiens. He was acquired as a free agent by the Kraken in the summer of 2021 and is coming off a productive postseason with the Coachella Valley Firebirds, where he was a regular with the Calder Cup finalists. In 26 playoff games he registered five points.
“Goose” spent part of his development time in North America, playing a season at Colorado College after two seasons in the USHL with the Green Bay Gamblers junior team. He found success at that level in 2014 when he led Team Sweden in scoring from the blueline in helping them win a Silver Medal at the World Junior Championship. The Swedes lost the Gold Medal game to rival Finland 3-2 in overtime in a game played on home ice in Malmo.
No Mo’ “Frodo”
Olofsson’s signing comes two days after the Kraken bid farewell to forward Jesper Froden, the Stockholm-born winger who played 14 games for Seattle last season. The man some of the Seattle media immediately started referring to as “Frodo” when he was first called up to play against the Boston Bruins on February 23rd, signed a two-year contract with ZSC Lions in the Swiss National League, Switzerland’s top professional circuit.
Froden finished his NHL efforts in 2022-’23 with four points, six penalty minutes and a plus-4 rating. He appeared in one playoff game on April 22nd in the 1st-round against the Colorado Avalanche and played a little more than four minutes.
The undrafted right winger returns to Europe where he spent all of his development and almost all of his professional career; seven years of it in his native Sweden.
In June of 2021 he signed as a free agent with the Boston Bruins, the team with which he played his first seven NHL games. He did realize one dream, scoring his first, and in his case his only, NHL goal on April 14th, 2022 against the Ottawa Senators. In traffic in front, Froden tipped in a point shot from Bruins defenseman Matt Grzelcyk past Senators goalie Anton Forsberg, a fellow Swede, at 19:01 of the 1st period to give Boston a 2-0 lead.
Froden had five goals and five assists in 15 playoff games in helping Coachella Valley get to within one win of a Calder Cup championship.
