Swedish winger Olle Lycksell has often been a player who has flown under the radar in his still-young career. Drafted by the Flyers in the sixth round of the 2017 NHL Entry Draft, Lycksell signed a two-year entry-level contract last May.
Lycksell Looks to Excel in North America
Swedish winger Olle Lycksell has often been a player who has flown under the radar in his still-young career.
He spent the 2021-22 season on loan to the Växjo Lakers of the Swedish Hockey League (SHL). He will make his North American pro debut in 2022-23, most likely with the AHL's Lehigh Valley Phantoms. Lycksell will turn 23 on August 24.
"Lycksell will be coming over next season. He is a skilled player with good speed. He can make good plays with the puck and has some finish, too. The biggest challenge he's faced has been to add strength and muscle to his frame." Flyers assistant general manager Brent Flahr said in March.
At the time the Flyers drafted Lycksell, who rose up through the Linköping JC junior system, the player was listed at 5-foot-9 and 155 pounds. He was small and slight even for most 17-year-old players and split the 2016-17 season between the Linköping under-18 and under-20 squads. He dominated the J18 level because he was too skilled for the opposition, racking up a combined 19 goals and 36 points in just 22 games. At the J20 level, the player was assigned to the lower end of the lineup and posted nine points in 24 games.
Lycksell's name was nowhere to be found on publicly available Draft rankings prior to the 2017 NHL Entry Draft. He did not play at the IIHF Under-18 World Championship or in other high-profile tournaments. This is where it truly becomes vital to have regional amateur scouts with their boots on the ground and an eye to project what a young player might become within a few years; not just what he shows at the time. There was plenty of buzz about Lycksell's talents around Linköping but less nationally in the Swedish hockey community and virtually none outside the country.
At the recommendation of Joakim Grundberg, then a young amateur scout for the Flyers specializing in Scandinavian leagues and today the organization's director of European scouting, the Flyers selected Lycksell with the 168th overall pick.
Over the course of the season that followed, Lycksell took the first of two big leaps in his development. He split the season evenly between the Linköping J20 team (26 games played, 22 points) and their professional men's team roster in the SHL (25 games, seven points including five goals) as well as two games on loan to Allsvenskan (top minor league) team Oskarshamn, where he had a goal and an assist.
Following his promising Draft-plus-one season, Lycksell got a seven-game look with Sweden's national under-20 team but did not get selected for the 2018-19 World Junior Championship. At the SHL level, he settled into a pattern of continuing to progress in small increments. He'd often get off to quick starts in seasons and then fade a bit as the year progressed. On the positive side, he was now a virtual every-game starter in the SHL.
In similar fashion to a fellow Flyers prospect, defenseman Linus Högberg, adding muscle and keeping the weight on during the season, was a difficult and multi-year process for Lycksell. He filled out gradually over the offseasons as he worked to find a diet-and-workout regimen that generated results for him. He also had a late growth spurt from the 5-foot-9 of his draft year to 5-foot-11. Lycksell was most recently listed at 176 pounds.
Along the way, there were plenty of flashes of promise, apart from the youngster compiling five goals during the 3-on-3 tourney that concluded the Flyers' 2018 Development camp. He was usually good for a few snipes per season that made the SHL leaguewide highlight packages. However, in back-to-back years (2019-20 with Linköping and 2020-21 with Färjestad), Lycksell produced identical stats over the 52-game season: 9 goals, 12 assists and 21 points.
The Flyers had a decision to make. The player's exclusive NHL rights were set to expire in June 2021. Ultimately, the organization showed faith that there was enough to work with in order to project Lycksell as a potentially successful pro over in North America. The key would be for him to continue to add strength to compete over the long season.
Lycksell was loaned to Växjö for the 2021-22 season. Playing for a Lakers team that entered the campaign as the defending SHL champions, Lycksell had the second season of his career where his development took a big jump from the prior year. At age 22, he was one of his team's most consistent all-around players during the rseason and also new SHL career highs with 34 points (14 goals, 20 assists) in 46 games played.
When the playoffs rolled around, Lycksell was the Lakers' best player. The team itself got swept in four first-round games by Frölunda HC Göteborg (Gothenburg), but Lycksell was a big reason why two of the games even got to overtime. For the series, Lycksell compiled eight points (three goals, five assists) over the four matches.
In July of this year, Lycksell participated in the Flyers Development Camp. As is of the case at some camps, it was not hard to spot which players have already played at professional levels. Lycksell sailed through most of the drills, especially ones that emphasize agility, quickness and precision. On Day One, for example, he was paired up with Finnish prospect Samu Tuomaala, and the two put on a clinic in how to execute a rapid passing drill; going tape-to-tape on most of their passes.
This time around, Lycksell will be staying around when it's time for Rookie Camp and NHL camp. While the soon-to-be 23-year-old winger is a longshot to earn an NHL roster spot on the Flyers, especially at the start of the season. he is one of the more intriguing newcomers on the Phantoms. He needs to have a strong rookie AHL campaign to start building a case for an eventual crack at the NHL.
