Albin Aldgard Biography

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Albin Aldgard, D

S97 Draft Eligible

Sweden 

 

Albin Aldgard was born in Ostervala in Uppsala County, Sweden. While the smaller southern town of roughly 1600 may not have had the amenities of some larger centres, it still had deep hockey roots, being also the home town of NHL hockey players Filip Forsberg, Marcus Ragnarsson, and Gustav Lindstrom.

 

Albin’s parents nurtured their only child in his early years through their love of sport. His father, Viktor, a hockey player for the local HockeyFyran (Division 4) team Ostervala IF, taught him to skate when he was four years old and his mother, Ella, a cross-country skier, competed around Europe and instilled in him a love for the outdoors. Although being a smaller child, his athletic aptitude and competitive will was quickly evident and his desire to win at even the smallest game became the fuel for his future career in hockey.

 

With watching his father play for the local hockey team since he was a toddler and learning to skate with his dad when he was able to, hockey had always been a part of Albin’s life since he could remember. But the spark came one winter when he was six and his family was visiting his mother’s sister – his aunt – in the city of Vasteras. His aunt took them to one of Sweden’s popular outdoor activity parks Aktivt Uteliv Björnögården on the island of Björnö to skate on the frozen waters of Lake Malaren with kilometers of cleared tracks for skating. Whizzing along the endless paths of ice made young Albin feel like he was flying and he never wanted it to end. That evening, they went to watch Vasteras’ new VHLE team, the Iron Eagles, a team founded on the heels of the Malmo Nighthawks’ VHL championship the season before. Albin got caught up in the crowd’s excitement of a new league joining the city as well as having a talented Swedish goalie, Oskar Lindbergh @Doomsday, in net for the team. The next night as his parents tucked him into bed wearing his new Iron Eagles jersey, Albin announced he wanted to be a hockey player when he grew up.

 

Skating on Lake Malaren near Vasteras sparked Algard's love of ice.

 

Over the next few years, it seemed like Albin was always playing hockey, and when he wasn’t playing hockey, he was skating, either on the rink or on the nearby Lake Tamnaren when it was frozen. He quickly became the best skater in his age group and this skill eventually saw him transition to defense due to his ability to get back to his zone faster than anyone else. He loved the game and was constantly working on his skills whether it was shooting pucks or playing keep-away with his dad. Word started to travel about this lightning fast defender in Ostervala and local scouts took notice.

 

For his Age-16 season, the family moved to Gavle so Albin could play for the Brynas junior team. He would spend the next three seasons in Gavle, leading their defensemen in scoring in two of those three seasons. They never made the playoffs though and that bothered him. At the end of the third season after accumulating 54 points in 88 games over three seasons, the Swedish Hockey League parent team Brynas IF invited the 18-your-old to play in a few games at the pro level. He skated in three SHL games, collecting an assist in his first game and acquitted himself well drawing praise from the pro players. The experience cemented his desire to make hockey his career.

 

In 2022, the city of Uppsala was granted a HockeyAllsvenskan (Division 1) team after a multi-year hiatus and as Uppsala was closer to Ostervala than Gavle, Albin joined Uppsala’s Almtuna IS Jr. team for the 2022-23 season. He was leading team defensemen in scoring with 24 points in 31 games when he was one of the last cuts for Team Sweden’s World Junior squad so with the Almtuna IS Jr. team in third-last in the league and with no hope of making the playoffs, the parent team called him up and he spent the next 22 games of the season with the Division 1 Almtuna IS where he scored 4 goals and 12 assists for 16 points but didn’t dress for either of the two qualifying playoff games.

 

Aldgard spent his adolescent years with Almtuna IS Jr. and Brynas Jr. teams. 

 

The next season he made the full-time jump to the SHL signing with Orebro HK, a team that also featured NHL prospects Jonathan Lekkerimaki, Samuel Johannesson and briefly Elias Pettersson. Despite a strong start to the season Albin was again a late cut for Team Sweden’s World Junior team in December. He finished 7^th on Orebro HK in scoring and 3^rd among team defensemen with 18 points in 40 games which tied him for 6^th among league rookies and tied for 1^st among first-year blueliners. Finally, he played in one qualifying playoff game – his first playoff game since leaving Ostervala as a teenager.

 

Feeling that playing for less successful teams had been hurting his chances on the World Junior teams which gave him less exposure to international scouts, he talked to teammate Jonathan Lekkerimaki about Canada who gave him positive reviews about his time there for the 2022 NHL draft in Montreal and the Vancouver Canucks’ development camp. With this info in mind and childhood memories of the VHLE and the Vasteras Iron Eagles, he asked his agent to contact teams connected to that league for opportunities. The Mississauga Hounds in the VHL’s minor league (VHLM) responded and as they were a contending team guaranteed to make the playoffs and with a need on the back end, Albin Aldgard left his beloved Sweden and flew across the world to join a new team in an attempt to continue his dream.

Edited October 4 by animal74