{"id":559734,"date":"2026-04-26T05:18:14","date_gmt":"2026-04-26T05:18:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/559734\/"},"modified":"2026-04-26T05:18:14","modified_gmt":"2026-04-26T05:18:14","slug":"first-red-wings-player-commits-to-worlds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/559734\/","title":{"rendered":"First Red Wings Player Commits to Worlds"},"content":{"rendered":"

Albert Johansson<\/a> is the first Detroit<\/a> Red Wings player to confirm that his hockey season isn\u2019t over.<\/p>\n

According to the Swedish website Expressen<\/a>, Detroit defenseman Johansson is among three NHL players who have made a commitment to play for Sweden in the upcoming IIHF World Championship.<\/p>\n

Forwards Emil Heineman and Simon Holmstrom of the New York Islanders are the other players who will be suiting up for their homeland in the tourney.<\/p>\n

For Johansson, 25, this will be his first time playing for Sweden at the senior international level. He played for his country in the World U18 and World Junior Championships. <\/p>\n

Johansson\u2019s father, former NHL defenseman Roger Johansson, played for Sweden in three World Championships. The elder Johansson also suited up for the Swedes at the 1994 Winter Olympic Games and the 1996 World Cup of Hockey.<\/p>\n

In his second full NHL season, Albert Johansson collected a career-high 11 points and equaled a career best with three goals. <\/p>\n

\u201cI think just overall, my offensive game, jumping up in places, has come a little bit more,\u201d Johansson said. \u201cI still want to play good defensively. But, yeah, probably the offensive part is maybe the biggest step this year.\u201d<\/p>\n

Johansson May Be Only Red Wings Player On Swedish Team<\/p>\n

Johansson will be carrying on a long-standing tradition of Red Wings playing for Sweden on the international stage. However, it\u2019s likely that this year, he\u2019ll be the only Detroit player in the Tre Kronor lineup.<\/p>\n

Swedish ever-present Lucas Raymond<\/a> suggested he was uncertain at best about playing the worlds.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy stance has always been that I love representing my country, and you do it every time you get a chance to do it,\u201d Raymond said. \u201cI always want to take that opportunity, but there\u2019s going to be circumstances where that might not be possible.\u201d<\/p>\n

Raymond has played in the past three world tourneys. He was Sweden\u2019s leading scorer at the recent Olympic Games with 1-8-9 totals in five games.<\/p>\n

Following a pair of knee surgeries, it\u2019s unlikely that defenseman Simon Edvinsson<\/a> will be extending his season with world championship participation. Fellow defenseman Axel Sandin-Pellikka was assigned to the AHL Grand Rapids Griffins when Detroit\u2019s season concluded.<\/p>\n

Last year, Raymond, Edvinsson, and defenseman Erik Gustafsson were Red Wings players in the Swedish lineup at the World Championships. <\/p>\n

Sweden will play in Group B at the world tourney, with Canada, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Denmark, Norway, and Italy. The IIHF World Championship is slated for May 15-31 in Switzerland.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Albert Johansson is the first Detroit Red Wings player to confirm that his hockey season isn\u2019t over. According…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":559735,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5108],"tags":[5175,3644,5180,897,230,5179,1511,93,5,4],"class_list":{"0":"post-559734","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-columbus-blue-jackets","8":"tag-albert-johansson","9":"tag-blue-jackets","10":"tag-bluejackets","11":"tag-columbus","12":"tag-columbus-blue-jackets","13":"tag-columbusbluejackets","14":"tag-detroit-hockey-now","15":"tag-detroit-red-wings","16":"tag-hockey","17":"tag-nhl"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116469321178629079","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/559734","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=559734"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/559734\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/559735"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=559734"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=559734"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=559734"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}