The Montreal Canadiens announced Thursday that defenseman Mathias Norlender will continue his development in Sweden for the remainder of the SHL season.
The 21-year-old Norlender has played his first six National Hockey League games this season, earning one pass. It wasn’t used much by CH’s coaching staff, spending an average of 12:17 on the ice.
Last week, some time after he was demoted to Laval, Norländer already told Swedish media that it had been some time since he had been considering “going home”.
“He’s a smart guy,” said coach Dominique Ducharme. When I spoke to him (Wednesday), I saw that he understands between European hockey and hockey here. Basically it is the time and space that the player has to do in the game the pressure exerts … you have much less time to make your decisions and make your bets. These are the things he immediately felt.
“He is a physically stronger guy than I could have imagined before he came here. It should be more dynamic in his case, to quickly reach to close space with the opposing attackers. Also, since the players are stronger, it also means better protection of the disk,” Ducharme continued.
More details to come
