DENVER \u2013 Seattle goalie prospect Victor Ostman was called up last April on an emergency basis as the backup for a game in Utah. But a 7-1 score at second intermission prompted a goaltender change with the Swedish-born Ostman tugging on his mask to start the third period. He stopped all 12 shots he faced, including four high-danger scoring chances and impressing his teammates, coaches and fans.\u00a0
Problem was, Ostman\u2019s parents, Helene Hasselskog and Lars Ostman, separately didn\u2019t watch the game since it was the middle of the night back in Danderyd, a suburb of Stockholm.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cMy parents knew I was going to dress,\u201d said Ostman post-game in St. Louis last spring. \u201cThey didn’t expect me to play. So, we’ll see when they wake up in the morning and probably get a little surprise.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hasselskog, who is remarried, recalled of that game: \u201cVictor called me in the evening. We knew what was going to happen, he would be on the bench. \u00a0When \u00a0I saw the score, I was hoping he wasn’t playing. Then I realized he was in goal in the third period and he had a shutout for the period. That made us super happy.\u201d<\/p>\n
For Ostman\u2019s first NHL start Thursday here in Colorado, there was no such mishap involved. Ostman\u2019s parents were sitting comfortably in the team\u2019s hotel Thursday afternoon to discuss the monumental night ahead and their son\u2019s hockey dream.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Traveling Party of Five Sees Strong Outing<\/p>\n
Ostman\u2019s older sister, Cecilia, was part of the traveling party along with her boyfriend, Charlie. Helene\u2019s husband, Jan Saarsoo, completed the five supremely happy Swedes sitting in Section 108 at Ball Arena when the puck dropped here.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Ostman left home for the first time when he was 15, to play for the junior team for famed Swedish hockey club, HV71 Jonkoping, about a three-hour drive from Danderyd. By age 18, Ostman was playing for the Chicago Steel in the USHL before a standout four-year career at NCAA Division I University of Maine.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was sort of sad, not being part of some teenage years and seeing him growing,\u201d said Lars, who helped coach his son\u2019s youth team. \u201cBut that\u2019s the game.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lars explained that Ostman took part in a national tournament \u00a0equivalent to a national title among, say, high school football or basketball teams here in the U.S. That\u2019s how HV71 scouts saw the potential of the Kraken prospect, who signed out of Maine two springs ago.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cHe wasn\u2019t even 16 yet when he joined HV71,\u201d said Helene. \u201cWhen he was eight, he was playing both soccer and hockey. But the practices and games conflicted. We explained to him he needed to choose one. He said, \u2018I want to be a hockey player and I want to be a goalie!\u2019 and added, \u201cYou can sell all of the soccer stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n
Helene smiles more, recalling a huge poster of the Swedish Hockey Hall of Fame goalie Henrik Lundqvist tacked to her son\u2019s bedroom wall at her home soon after that declaration. A bit later in his younger playing days, Victor convinced his dad to supersize \u201ca huge wallpaper\u201d of his making a save with the puck securely and prominently in his catch-glove. The image adorned Victor\u2019s bedroom at his dad\u2019s place.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DENVER \u2013 Seattle goalie prospect Victor Ostman was called up last April on an emergency basis as the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":556867,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5130],"tags":[5,4188,4,2686,234,5318],"class_list":{"0":"post-556866","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-seattle-kraken","8":"tag-hockey","9":"tag-kraken","10":"tag-nhl","11":"tag-seattle","12":"tag-seattle-kraken","13":"tag-seattlekraken"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116438784503226276","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/556866","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=556866"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/556866\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/556867"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=556866"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=556866"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=556866"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}