My Influences: Lukas Vejdemo

MONTREAL - Young gun Lukas Vejdemo picked up some tricks of the hockey trade from watching several NHLers.

Shortly after the 2018-19 season ended, we sat down with the talented Swedish centerman to learn more about his top influences.
Peter Forsberg
When I was growing up, Peter Forsberg was a legend. He was an idol. He inspired me with the way he was playing out there. He was good offensively. He was good defensively. I watched him a lot when I was younger.

Henrik Zetterberg
Detroit had a lot of Swedish guys on their team when I was growing up. He was my favorite player, a two-way center. I tried to model my game a bit after him. He was so skilled both ways and so smart out there.

Mathew Barzal
I like everything about his game, the speed and the hands. He can do sick moves at full speed and doesn't have to slow down to do anything. He can do everything at full pace, and you need to be able to do that to be a good player today in the NHL. Everything is going so fast out there, so it you can do everything with full speed you're going to have an advantage.

Nicklas Lidstrom
He always played for the team and put the team first. He was so smart. I think he never had a bad game. He always showed up. You knew what you were going to get from him every night. He played over 1,500 games in the NHL. His first pass was always good. He kept it easy when he was supposed to keep it easy. When he had time, he could make a move, too.

The Sedins
They had sick careers. Especially playing together, I remember they came from the NHL to Sweden to play in the World Hockey Championship after the Vancouver Canucks were knocked out of the playoffs. I watched them live on the big ice. You could see how smart they were. They were throwing pucks around the boards to each other. It was pretty sick to see.