EDMONTON — After years of tormenting the Edmonton Oilers from afar, Viktor Arvidsson wormed his way into a pre-camp scrimmage and found himself skating against Connor McDavid.
What happened next? What do you think?
Arvidsson tried to slow down the Oilers’ captain, predictably got tangled up with him, and McDavid’s scrimmage ended on a sore and sour note. He stayed down a while, then held his hip as he skated off, visibly unhappy.
“I was just as at fault as he was, but, yeah, kind of funny how it worked out. Old habits, right?,” McDavid said the next day. “Sometimes you can’t shake it.”
Old habits?
“Yeah, maybe,” smiled Arvidsson, who wasn’t laughing the day before in a dead quiet practice rink when McDavid stayed down.
Where once the Oilers resided on every free agent’s “no-trade list,” somewhere above Winnipeg and somewhere below everyone else, today players like Arvidsson head to this NHL outpost for a myriad of reasons. Of course, that list starts with a chance to win a Stanley Cup, before moving to the opportunity to play with a pair of elite centremen in McDavid and Leon Draisaitl.
In Arvidsson’s case, it also meant hooking up with old family friend and fellow Nashville draft pick Mattias Ekholm, who has become the anti-Pronger in Edmonton, selling the city like he’s being paid by the Chamber of Commerce.
“It’s great talking to him and to his wife, and my wife to his wife. It’s been awesome. And kids play together, go to same school. So it’s been great,” said Arvidsson, 31. “We’ve been knowing each other since Nashville times, since I got there. I basically ate dinner with him and (Calle) Jarnkrok and (Filip) Forsberg every single day when I lived at the hotel there.”
They list Arvidsson at five-foot-10 and 185 pounds. We won’t quibble with the weight, but he’s no better than five-nine, and more likely five-eight to my eye. Arvidsson is, however, that rare small player who has proven his ability to make size irrelevant.
Hockey history is littered with small players whose physicality was compared to Theoren Fleury, or whose skills were likened to Patrick Kane’s. Nearly all of them paled in comparison, their impact a shadow of their comparables.
Arvidsson has spent 546 NHL games proving his mettle, to the point where the only concern about his ability to compete when the games get hard in May and June is his injury status. He’s been hurt some, playing just 18 games for the Los Angeles Kings last season and missing the first of three playoff meetings between the Kings and Oilers in the past three post-seasons.
He was on the ice as the Oilers beat L.A. with increasing ease over the past two springs, however.
“They can show you so many different things offensively,” he said of Edmonton. “The firepower up front, and they were really good on the PK when (L.A.) played them last year. So they basically had everything.”
If you’ve watched the Western Conference intently over Arvidsson’s nine seasons, you know.
If you haven’t, then watching him work with Edmonton this year will undoubtedly leave you impressed with his courage, physical play, and 25- to 30-goal hands. He’ll likely line up on Draisaitl’s right wing, a left shot who can bury pucks, with four 25-goal seasons.
“He’s always dangerous on the ice,” McDavid said. “He’s so sneaky, works hard, so competitive, wins battles, annoying to play against… Somebody that you for sure would rather have on your team. He’s one of the guys that I’m really excited about. I think he’s going to fit in great here.”
It’s amazing how the culture has flipped in Edmonton, a truth that should blow some wind into the sails of a Calgary Flames franchise that sits where Edmonton did just a few years ago.
Today, the Oilers are a Cup contender in one of the NHL’s very best arenas, with ownership that does all the right thigs to attract NHL players, making a private jet available for McDavid and Draisaitl’s trip to the NHL’s player/media tour in Las Vegas Tuesday.
For Arvidsson to leave Manhattan Beach for a pending Edmonton winter…? That was heresy just a few years ago.
“It’s not the beach, it’s not beautiful weather all the time,” admitted McDavid. “But we’re here to play hockey and we’re here to be a part of something. And I think guys want to do that.
“Winning helps. The building helps. You spend … maybe more of your time at the rink, and our building is completely first class and the way we’re treated is great.
“I think for people who haven’t experienced Edmonton, don’t know Edmonton, it’s really easy living. It’s really convenient living. There’s no hour drive, there’s no traffic, although the construction could be better (laughs). But, it’s stress-free living. So it checks a lot of boxes for a lot of guys.”
It checked the box for the Skelleftea, Sweden, native Arvidsson, who comes from the same hometown as Ekholm’s wife Ida.
“It’s the hockey,” he said of what drew him here. “People want to get better. People want to win. I can just look at myself: I’m from up north in Sweden too, so I’m kind of used to the weather.
“I think weather is a big part of it, for players, but I’m excited.”