Red Wings’ Axel Sandin-Pellikka is looking to join elite club at World Juniors
OTTAWA – You couldn’t ask for a better opening night.
Entering his third World Junior Championship with Team Sweden, Axel Sandin-Pellikka – donning the captain’s “C” – had a three-goal, four-point debut in a 5-2 win over Slovakia. It was a truly dominant performance from the Detroit Red Wings prospect, who was just as good away from the puck as he was with it.
“It was a special night for a special player,” one NHL scout said after the game.
Sandin-Pellikka has a chance to become just the second player in tournament history to win the directorate award as top defenseman, with Russia’s Viacheslav Fetisov being the lone man to hold the designation. ASP won it as an 18-year-old in his sophomore appearance after making his debut in Halifax in 2023.
The two-way defender earned rave reviews for his play with the puck, but many scouts thought he was just as good, if not better, handling the competition from his own zone.
“His physicality is an underrated element of his game,” a scout said after the tournament in Sweden. “He doesn’t want you to snag open ice and has the gap control and the hockey IQ to take advantage.”
Slovakia was no slouch of an opponent in Game 1 – many players from both teams met in the bronze medal game of the U-18 World Championship this past May. So that’s what makes ASP’s 2025 tournament debut so notable – the points, plus the team-leading 11 shots from the point. Sweden has a good team, one that many expect to challenge for a medal yet again. But all signs point to Sandin-Pellikka being a crucial piece of Sweden’s offensive attack, too.
Sandin-Pellikka is manning Sweden’s top pairing alongside Montreal Canadiens prospect Rasmus Bergqvist. Together, they had four goals and 14 of Sweden’s 13 shots – an absurd total, given no forward had more than one shot. For reference, he had 20 shots in six games last year in total. And ASP did it in only 20:55 in ice time – if they needed him to, they easily could have given Sandin-Pellikka another 5-8 minutes with no problem. At the very least, he was locked in on the power play, where he’ll quarterback the top unit, barring unforeseen circumstances.
Taken 17th overall by the Red Wings in 2023, Pellikka has eight goals and 22 points in 25 games this year with Skelleftea AIK in the SHL. He’ll miss time due to his World Junior Championship participation, but he’s on pace for 44 points over 50 games. Not only would that smash Nils Lundkvist’s U-20 SHL scoring record by a defenseman (31 points), but it would be sixth all-time in that age group. That would edge out campaigns from Daniel Sedin, Nicklas Backstrom, and Markus Naslund, among others.
How far ahead is he from the rest of the pack? No U-20 SHL defenseman has over six points this year. If you combine the rest of the SHL defenders on this Swedish World Junior team, you’ll only get 13 points. He’s only eight points off Tomas Jonsson’s all-time cumulative scoring total among U-20 SHL defenders, and ASP has played 19 fewer games.
Sandin-Pellikka isn’t far off from fulling outgrowing the SHL. So, next up: Detroit? The Red Wings typically like to give their top prospects some time in Grand Rapids to get up to speed with the North American game, but Sandin-Pellikka is putting up numbers that make you wonder just what he’s capable of at a young age.
His defensive game is solid, too, as you’d hope from a defenseman. Sandin-Pellikka is physically better than we’ve seen in recent years, and is much more engaged in clearing out the crease to keep traffic away from his goaltender.
“He’d be prone to try and rush the puck up the ice and would get caught making mistakes coming back in his draft year,” another scout said. “But his continued patience has allowed him to slow the game down to make the right plays instead of just another play.”
Sweden plays Kazakhstan on Day 2 of the tournament, a game the Swedes should win handedly. It’ll be interesting if the coaching staff lets him run free and try and chase the scoring title, or if they’ll shelter him in favor of keeping him ready for meetings against Czechia and Switzerland later in the tournament.
Either way, don’t be surprised if we end up watching a record-breaking run. The single tournament goal-scoring record by a defenseman is seven, set by Finland’s Juha Jyrkkio in 1977. Nobody has scored more than nine in their total career. Sandin-Pellikka is at five, so if he stays hot, we could be looking at something special here.
Early days, for sure. But who doesn’t like a good milestone watch?
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