Mattias Havelid

U18: Team Sweden vs Team Finland, April 26, 2022: Havelid is a high end transition inducing defenseman. When he retrieved loose pucks in his defensive end below, especially below his goal line, Havelid was reading the layers of Finland’s forecheck showing excellent poise and deception to “look” where he was not going to pass the puck. Early in the first period the right shot wheeled behind his net looking directly at his posted left winger. But rather than force a pass into coverage he quickly pulled the puck 12″ to his backhand and made an area pass through the F1’s triangle to his soft support through the dot lane. He finished the game with 2 goals on 4 grade “A” scoring opportunities. Both goals came on snap shots from the blueline after he walked the blue line with his eyes up allowing his forwards to establish their net front presence. They were both highly skilled plays, but what we liked occurred before the goals as he started Team Sweden’s offensive zone play by making quick decisions in transition to find the streaking wide lane forward through the neutral zone. Havelid had 22:13 in TOI making an impact on both special team’s units and finished with a game high 12 takeaways. He is a high end defenseman who looks made for today’s NHL.

U18: Team Sweden vs Team USA at the Hlinka Gretzky Cup, August 7, 2021: One explosive stride and Havelid is at full speed. There were times that after giving an outlet pass he would simply blow by the Team USA back checkers to create odd man rushes. Offensively he played with no panic or pressure in his game, and while manning the top of the umbrella on the power play (2:41 of ice time) he would be playing with his feet outside of the offensive zone while his stick was inside the zone. We liked his ability to receive poor passes cleanly and quickly recognize when to walk the offensive blue line to generate shooting lanes. His hard accurate point shot hit the net and looked to be tippable. He was also an impactful player while short handed where his 3:04 of ice time led Team Sweden. Havelid had 7 give aways, but responded by having 12 take aways.