HALIFAX, N.S. — A little more than a year ago, when Rogle BK general manager Chris Abbott began asking around with scouts to get their thoughts on Sweden’s most underrated young players, one name from Djurgardens IF, a team loaded with talent for the 2022 NHL Draft, kept coming up.

It wasn’t Jonathan Lekkeriamki’s, the would-be first-round pick of the Vancouver Canucks. It wasn’t Noah Ostlund’s, the would-be first-round pick of the Buffalo Sabres. It wasn’t Liam Ohgren’s, the would-be first-round pick of the Minnesota Wild. It wasn’t Calle Odelius’, the would-be second-round pick of the New York Islanders, either.

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It was their older teammate, defenceman Adam Engstrom, the late 2003 birthday of the group. At the time, those whispers about Engstrom being one of the better 2003-born defencemen in the country hadn’t extended to his draft status though. When NHL Central Scouting released its players to watch list for the 2022 class, he wasn’t among the nearly 375 players on it. They hadn’t risen to the national team, either. To that point, Engstrom had never represented Sweden internationally. But Abbott and his staff, always keen to potentially bring in 17-, 18- and 19-year-old players that might be capable of taking a big step in their development, decided to put him on their radar and follow him closely.

As the season progressed, though he never drew the notoriety of his highly-touted teammates, whispers about Engstrom then turned into chatter and then even some buzz. When scouts showed up to watch Lekkerimaki, Ostlund, Ohgren, and Odelius, they were often impressed by him. At midseason, he made his first appearance on NHL Central Scouting’s list, ranking No. 81 on their list of European skaters. At season’s end, he’d risen all the way to No. 38 on NHL Central Scouting’s final ranking of European skaters.

Eventually, the Montreal Canadiens selected him with the No. 92 pick in the third round of the draft. Knowing then that Djurgarden’s pro team was going to be relegated from the SHL to the second-tier HockeyAllsvenskan, and that because of that they would be in less of a position the following year to play all five of their promising young players as they tried to earn promotion back into the top flight, Abbott reached out to Engstrom’s camp.

He wasn’t promised anything, and Abbott wasn’t prepared to give him a rookie contract in the SHL, but Rogle wanted to bring him in on a junior contract and work with him, like they had before with other young defencemen, including Detroit’s Moritz Seider and William Wallinder.

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Eventually, with the support of the Canadiens, Engstrom decided to make the move.

His play since has put him on everyone’s radar.

Today, just a year after he made that first appearance near the bottom of NHL Central Scouting’s midseason ranking, he’s now signed to that rookie SHL contract and playing for Team Sweden for the first time — on its first pairing at the world juniors no less.

A couple of weeks ago, before he left for the tournament, he played 19:02, 16:11, 20:30, 19:41 and 17:33 in his last five games for Rogle.

In his first game of the world juniors and — according to him — his first game on the smaller North American ice, he picked up two assists, registered two shots on goal, and finished plus-4 in an 11-0 win against Austria. In his second game, he scored the lone goal in Sweden’s tight 1-0 win over Germany, walking the line and placing a shot through to the net for his third point in four periods, and was out late for a trio of shifts in the final five minutes.

Just like those whispers foretold, he has taken off.

When Senators prospect Oskar Pettersson is asked about his Rogle and Tre Kronor teammate, he speaks of the 6-foot-2, 190-pound left-shot defenceman almost like a forward.

“(Engstrom) plays with a lot of confidence. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen any other D that plays with that confidence,” Pettersson said. “His hockey IQ is very, very good. He sees the plays out there. He makes very good plays both from down low and also from the blue line. He likes to deke and make some nice moves, but he can also make great passes and really shoot it.”

That — the offensive side of the game — is where his untapped potential was. Though he posted 10 goals and 35 points in a combined 51 regular-season and playoff games with Djurgardens’ junior team last year, three more than Odelius’ 32 in 49, it was Odelius who got the greater share of the power-play time and SHL opportunity (Odelius played seven SHL games to Engstrom’s one last year), which hid some of Engstrom’s own talent. The same is true in Halifax with the national team, where its 2023 draft-eligible defenceman Axel Sandin Pellikka running the power play while Engstrom has been tasked with a five-on-five and penalty-killing role.

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But when the puck dropped on this season and Engstrom began the year with Rogle’s junior level, he’d just spent all summer working on his game on the blue line, practicing entries, and working on new ways to “create some time” for himself.

The impact was immediate, with Engstrom going for one goal and four points on five shots in his debut with Rogle’s junior team. After posting three goals and nine points from the back end at the J20 level through September, Abbott then signed him to a professional contract in short order. Before the first month of the season was over, he’d already scored his first SHL goal (in just his fourth game at the new level), too.

From there, he hasn’t looked back, playing primarily at the SHL level since the start of October. Heading into the world juniors, he’d played 32 games for the pro club in SHL and Champions Hockey League action, registering four goals and seven points.

The summer of work and the move to Rogle both paid off, impressing Abbott.

“He’s a very mobile, intelligent, offensive-minded guy who does a lot of very creative things on the blue line, sees the ice real well from his own end and through the neutral zone, and can also evade forecheckers with his skating, IQ, and patience in deception to make guys make the wrong reads on him. He’s a scorer, too. He’s got a good head-up mentality from the blue line and I like to see that. He can certainly run a power play. I can see him doing that in the future for us even more,” Abbott said. “He’s a dynamic player and he continues to take steps in his game adding different attributes throughout the season here, whether it’s being more risk-on on the offensive-zone blue line where if he has opportunities to beat guys he can, and yet at the same time not give up a lot defensively because that’s a big area in our league is making sure that you’re net-positive overall. He has done a really good job of being that for us.”

The underlying numbers reflect Abbott’s belief that he has been a net-positive in the SHL as an 18- and 19-year-old (Engstrom turned 19 in November), as well. With Engstrom on the ice at five-on-five, Rogle have outshot the opposition 248-222 (53 CF%).

He has made a similar impression off of the ice as well.

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“He’s been awesome. He just wanted an opportunity. We tend to under-promise and then over-deliver as far as the opportunity. He quickly proved that he should have his opportunity with our pro team and when he has gotten it he has taken it,” Abbott said. “It just speaks to his confidence in himself and his humbleness at the same time. He’s just a really fun guy, really fun teammate. He’s mature, professional, really listens well and is very coachable. I’ve not got a bad thing to say about him and I don’t mind calling it like it is.”

That strong impression has continued with Team Sweden, where Rogle’s assistant general manager Hampus Sjostrom is also the manager of this year’s national under-20 team.

He’s got a big role to play on a Swedish team that is without a clear No. 1 defenceman after Red Wings first-rounder Simon Edvinsson wasn’t loaned to the team.

So far, Magnus Havelid, the team’s head coach, has liked what he has seen, praising Engstrom, who began the tournament alongside alternate captain Victor Sjoholm, for his sharpness and quickness on the back end.

“Everybody’s level needs to step up a little bit extra (without Edvinsson). We need everybody on the defence. (Engstrom) can jump the ice and not just skating with the puck. He’s mobile — he can go both offensively and defensively. So I can use him in a lot of situations,” Havelid said. “I think he has developed great in Rogle. For him, when you know what’s right and wrong, I think it’s good. Before this tournament, he was playing really, really well in the SHL.”

Cam Abbott, Chris’ twin brother and the head coach of Rogle BK, chuckles from his home in Sweden on a Tuesday evening call when he’s asked about the rise of Engstrom.

His steep trajectory isn’t just about his game offensively, he says. His talent is clear to see when he has the puck at the offensive-zone blue line, or he’s skating it up ice, but the progress elsewhere in his game deserves equal credit for his ascension.

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“Adam’s a kid with an incredible skill set but also an ability to take in information and make adjustments to his game. He has done it very quickly from essentially being a junior-aged defenceman with ability on the offensive side to a guy who has really raised his bar defensively with us. He’s a really fun kid to work with who has earned this, works really hard, and is very coachable,” Cam says.

“I don’t think he has been pushed at the junior levels to really take pride, as he has had to with us, in his defensive responsibilities, in the first half of the season with us. He’s continually pushing himself to defend more effectively and for a kid with his skill set to balance that offensive risk/reward, it’s something I think he’s continually doing better and better.”

That growth in his own zone, which he says has also been helped by regular communication with the Canadiens throughout the season, has allowed him to take on a more defensive role with Team Sweden with confidence.

“I feel comfortable. I feel good. I accept the role that I get here. I can play wherever they want me to,” he said.

To find a suitable comparison for how quickly he has progressed, Chris used another rising star from Rogle.

“We saw Wallinder on the first go-around not get taken by the national team and then ended up winning the Swedish rookie of the year over even (Simon) Edvinsson,” Chris said.

Added Cam: “He’s just getting started.”

(Top photo: Courtesy Rogle BK)