As the World Cup of Hockey draws closer, Team Sweden has replaced on Henrik with another as their captain heading into the tournament. After it was reported that Mikael Backlund would be replacing the injured Henrik Zetterberg at the World Cup, Sweden was in need of a new captain.
While they have a number of eligible candidates, it seems fitting that they’ve announced Henrik Sedin as their replacement captain moving forward. His brother Daniel and Ottawa’s Erik Karlsson were named Sedin’s alternate captains for the tournament.
“I would never imagine I would ever have the ‘C’ on my jersey for the national team, especially in a tournament like this,” said Sedin in an interview with Dan Rosen. “As a kid you first draft about playing for MODO, your hometown team. Once you do that, of course it’s the national team, but we’ve never seen ourselves as guys who are going to be stars.”
In 2010, Sedin was named the 13th captain in the Vancouver Canucks’ 46 year history. Originally selected third overall by the Canucks in 1999, Sedin has spent his entire career with Vancouver collecting 970 points (222g-748a) in 1,166 career regular season games holding the franchise record for most career points.
At the international level, Sedin has represented Sweden on 12 occasions (with the World Cup being his 13th) – including two European Junior Championships, three World Junior Championships, five World Championships and two Olympics. Over that span, Sweden has medaled six times including three gold medals.
While he’s not the youngest on the team anymore, Sedin will get the opportunity to captain one of Sweden’s best teams in recent memory.
The tournament kicks off September 17 and will run right through to October 1.