There was a subtle moment a couple of months ago in the Ducks locker room, where veteran Kevin Bieksa was hosting a
lighthearted video
to promote the upcoming Dux in Tux charity event. It was well after that day's practice ended when Bieksa was conducting chirpy interviews with a handful teammates, testing them on their culinary knowledge. He was bantering back and forth with Cam Fowler when fellow defenseman Hampus Lindholm came trudging into the locker room in full gear.
Distracted by the sight, Bieksa joked into the mic, "Oh look, Hampus is just getting off the ice. Hardest worker on the team, just ask him." And Fowler sarcastically yelled out, "What were you doing out there the whole time?"
Lindholm's reply back was a simple one: "Getting better."
With a Diligent Work Ethic, Lindholm Getting Better with Age
It was a small insight into the work ethic of Lindholm, the now-veteran defenseman of 24 who made his debut with the Ducks as a 19-year-old back in 2013, a year and a half after Anaheim took the Swede with the sixth overall pick of the NHL Draft.
Lindholm posted a plus-54 rating over his first two seasons, second in the entire NHL and tops among league defensemen. And it was at the end of that second season in the league, when players were doing their requisite exit interviews with media, that the usually soft-spoken Lindholm declared his intention of becoming the best defenseman in the league.
"If you don't have that as a goal, I don't know why you're playing," he said. "I want to be the best one every night, I want to be the best one on this team, and that's what I'm working for."
Earlier this week in the days leading up to his sixth Stanley Cup Playoffs, Lindholm was asked if he remembers that pronouncement. "Yeah, for sure," he said. "And there is no doubt in my mind that I can be that. But you have to go out and work."
That dedication was once demonstrated back in 2015 when a reporter casually asked the then 20-year-old if he was looking for a house in Newport Beach, where a lot of NHLers live. "I don't care about the beach," he said politely. "I'm here to work." (True to his word, he has been living this season in an apartment in Costa Mesa while work is being done on a brand new house … in Irvine.)
And when he stays on the ice after most of his teammates have headed into the room and gotten changed to head home, what exactly is he doing out there, as Fowler kiddingly asked?
"It's the little things," he says, "the things that make you stand out as a player. It's not that you just go out and execute a shot [in a game]. That's something you work on time and time again. It's the things that aren't major, but they might help me that one time breaking the puck out, protecting the puck, help me that one time getting the puck to the net. Those are the things you want to have in your favor.
"When you look at the top-level defensemen in this league, it's those details that make them great. Whenever they can get a shot through, when they have a chance, they put it in the net. When they break the puck out, they do it clean and quick. They're strong. It's all those things put together each game, each minute, each shift. That's something I still feel like I can improve on and get better at."
Lindholm isn't the best in the game (yet), but there is no question he is among the top young defenseman in the NHL - and all signs point to him getting better each year. That was notable in the offensive end this season, when he scored a career-high 13 goals in just 69 contests (he missed time with shoulder injuries, including the first seven games of the season).
It's no coincidence that in every game but one in which Lindholm scored a goal this season, the Ducks won. The apex was his first career hat trick, including the overtime game-winner, in a dramatic 5-4 victory over the Islanders on December 21.
"When you put in the work and you feel like you're getting rewarded, it's always nice," says Lindholm, who was sixth on the Ducks in goals and first among d-men. "I don't take that many risks defensively, but I still want to be a guy you can rely on in the offensive end. To do that, you have to take some chances and be a little more creative. But I don't want to be a guy who pinches all the time and ends up with 2-on-1s going the other way. You want to be playing two-way hockey."
Another staple of Lindholm's game is his intelligence and mental toughness - he rarely makes a mistake in his own end, and when he does, he has a knack of making up for it almost immediately. His heightened sense of ice space and the location of his teammates is something he says was born in his Swedish upbringing in the game.
"When you play in Sweden, you grow up with the whole give-and-go idea," says the native of Helsingborg, on the coast of Southern Sweden. "We play a lot of 3-on-3 and 4-on-4 and coaches are always big on giving the puck to your guy and getting yourself open to get it back. It was more about possession - holding the puck and protecting it and then giving it to your guy and getting open, instead of just chipping it to one side and going. Even if you're in your end, you want possession, you want to break it out, you want to come up with speed. That's the way they teach us to play."
Though Lindholm won't turn 25 until next January and still has a baby face that has virtually no shot of growing a decent playoff beard, he's considered a veteran among a group of 20-somethings that make up the core of Anaheim's defensive unit. "I might not be the one standing in this locker room and speaking out, but I definitely want to lead the way with how I play," he says. "They can look at me on the ice and know that even if we're down a few goals or up a few goals, I'm going to be playing the same way and not let guys get by me."
And despite the tireless effort to improve, it's not as if Lindholm isn't having fun. Take a look at his Instagram account (
@hampuslindholm47
) and you'll see photos of him on the seashore (despite his previous beach remark), at home with a dog named Bobo or a selfie of a 20-stitch cut on his chin with the hashtag #MomsNotHappy.
And you may have seen Lindholm being
interviewed by Ducks reporter Kent French
on Prime Ticket after a big comeback win in late March, joking that, "We wanted to go down and then come back, because that's what sells tickets..." He ended the interview by giving "Frenchie" a hardy on-camera hug for the second time that week.
But there is nothing more fun for Lindholm than playoff hockey. "It's just about coming out and playing in front of your own fans in buildings where it's loud and emotions get high, and the games mean everything," Lindholm says. "I know what I'm capable of doing, so I'm just focused on being the best that I can be and giving our team a chance at having success. Now that we're in the playoffs we need to keep rolling in the same direction, and step it up even more."
