On The Rise! NHL Mock Draft...Wild Select Max Friberg

NHL.com recently made their mid-season mock draft picks in which their writers give their thoughts on which team will pick who. Steven Hoffner made an interesting pick for the Wild: Swedish winger Max Friberg. I thought this would be a great opportunity to continue our look into the Wild's potential 2011 1st round pick. 

If there was one player that benefited from the World Junior Championships, it would be Max Friberg. Relatively unknown before the tournament, Friberg was rated 15th in Sweden in the Central Scouting's Preliminary Rankings in November. He is now rated 6th after scoring 2 goals in 6 games during the WJC, including a beautiful goal against Canada where he batted the puck out of mid-air straight into the net.

Max Friberg goal vs Canada at 2011 WJC (2010-12-31) (via

Friberg played well enough to impress The Hockey News writer Ross Maclean (also head scout for International Scouting Services), being named onto Maclean's WJC all-tournament undrafted prospect team, in which he states "Friberg is just a ball of energy with tremendous hands and was a consistently dangerous offensive threat for the Swedes throughout the WJC." (http://bit.ly/gHdSC5)

That comment is also backed up by Future Considerations where they provide some very detailed scouting reports on Friberg, as shown below.

http://futureconsiderationsdotca.wordpress.com/2010/12/26/2468/

http://futureconsiderationsdotca.wordpress.com/2011/01/10/draft-eligibles-put-forth-mixed-performance-in-buffalo/