Bruins’ Elias Lindholm hopes to use World Championship boost to his advantage

This story appeared on hockeysverige.se this week and has been translated from Swedish to English.

Elias Lindholm’s first season with the Boston Bruins was a letdown.

The team missed the playoffs, and Lindholm struggled out of the gate, facing heavy criticism before finding a better rhythm in the second half of the season. Fortunately, he used the final few weeks at the World Championship to show that he can still deliver an offensive punch.

The 30-year-old Swede led the tournament with eight goals and finished second in scoring behind Bruins teammate David Pastrnak. That earned him a spot on the tournament’s All-Star Team alongside Swiss goaltender Leonardo Genoni, American star defenseman Zach Werenski, Swiss defenseman Dean Kukan, Pastrnak, and Danish forward Nick Olesen.

Still, there was no jubilant celebration after Lindholm and his Swedish teammates secured the bronze medal with a win against Denmark.

“It’s mixed feelings,” he said with a shrug. “Maybe you can look back on it later and feel proud, but I would have liked to play in the final.”

The loss to the Americans in the semifinal was still fresh in his mind as he tried to collect his thoughts about the tournament.

“It’s hard to sum it up right now,” Lindholm said. “It feels like there was more to give, but that’s what’s tough about these kinds of tournaments. A lot has to click, and it only takes one game where anything can happen. The United States made it difficult for us, so it ended up being bronze.”

Regardless, the center can look back on a strong tournament from a personal standpoint. He was Sweden’s best forward and contributed on both ends of the ice.

“That’s fun, I guess,” he added. “We came in expected to be more of a defensive line, but I think we produced well, got bumped up a bit, and received more offensive zone starts. So we proved we’ve got some extra upside.

“It was fun playing with ‘Mickis’ (Mikael Backlund) and then rotating with ‘Foppa’ (Filip Forsberg) and ‘Heine’ (Emil Heineman). All in all, I think I’ll look back and be somewhat satisfied, but I would’ve rather scored zero points and stood here with a gold medal.”

For Lindholm personally, the World Championship could be seen as a redemption. The NHL season hadn’t turned out the way he had hoped after moving to the Bruins last summer. He recorded 47 points (17 goals, 30 assists) in 82 games after signing a seven-year contract worth $7.75 million per season with the Bruins.

“I had a bit of a rough start to the season with an injury that wasn’t ideal,” Lindholm said. “Then toward the end, I got a great opportunity to play with (Morgan) Geekie and ‘Pasta’ (Pastrnak), and we were probably one of the best lines — if not the best — in the entire league. So I came here with good confidence.

“A lot of people have opinions when you sign contracts that big, so it’s nice to show that there’s still something there.”

Did the expectations and criticism get to him?

“A bit of both. Now that I have a family, it’s just hockey. But of course, you always want to deliver when you sign big contracts.”
The goal is to carry that confidence boost into next season.

“We’ll see what happens there with the coaching situation and everything. But I’ll go in with good confidence. I’ll try to train hard this summer and help the team go deeper than we did this year.”