Whether it\u2019s those in attendance at the rink or those watching at home as part of a national television audience, they\u2019ll have a first-hand look at Ekman-Larsson 2.0.<\/p>\n
As such, the turnaround since leaving Vancouver has been based on two basic principles, he says.<\/p>\n
\u201cFirst off, I\u2019m healthy,\u201d the 34-year-old said. \u201cI know that sounds simple but the fact is, it\u2019s the truth. It was tough in Vancouver not being 100 percent.<\/p>\n
\u201cSecondly, it\u2019s confidence. When things aren’t going your way and injuries won\u2019t let you play to the level you want, you start second-guessing things. When you get it back you can start playing more freely and naturally.\u201d<\/p>\n
That appears to be the place he\u2019s at now.<\/p>\n
And it\u2019s allowed him to become a serious candidate for a spot on Team Sweden for the Olympic Winter Games Milano Cortina 2026 in February.<\/p>\n
Hallam is back in Stockholm after spending weeks scouting NHL games in North America. In the process, Ekman-Larsson\u2019s promising start to the season caught his attention early on and continues to impress the coach.<\/p>\n
\u201cI agree he\u2019s been one of Toronto\u2019s best defensemen so far, if not the best,\u201d Hallam told NHL.com in a phone interview. \u201cWe\u2019re looking closely and following him.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe way he\u2019s kind of maneuvered his career from what happened in Vancouver, ending up in Florida, winning the Cup, and then bringing that level of game to Toronto, we\u2019re following him closely. And it\u2019s great to see.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s making my job difficult.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Whether it\u2019s those in attendance at the rink or those watching at home as part of a national…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":334370,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[64,63,575,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-334369","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-nhl","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/334369","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=334369"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/334369\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/334370"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=334369"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=334369"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=334369"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}