Oscar Lindberg

Oscar Lindberg (born on October 29, 1991 in Skellefteå) is a Swedish ice hockey center/left winger currently playing with the Dynamo Moskva of the KHL. He was selected 57th overall by the Phoenix Coyotes in the 2010 NHL Entry Draft.

Personal life
Lindberg was raised in Skellefteå, Sweden by his parents Christian and Katarina along with his twin brother, Johan, and his sister, Amanda. His junior coach was Jan Erixon, his mother's cousin, who made Lindberg a Rangers fan from a young age. Erixon's son, Tim, and Lindberg grew up as teammates in Skellefteå where they reached the Elitserien finals on their home team. Throughout his early years of hockey, Lindberg identified Joe Sakic to be his idol.

Club career
Oscar Lindberg played junior hockey with the Skellefteå AIK organistion. He made his senior debut playing 36 regular season games and 10 play-off games with the Skellefteå AIK of the Elitserien during the 2009-10 season. In this season, he also played 30 regular season games and 1 play-off game with the Skellefteå AIK under-20 team. He was drafted to play in the KHL by Spartak Moskva in 2010. The next year, Lindberg's NHL rights were traded from the Phoenix Coyotes to the New York Rangers in exchange for Ethan Werek. Once he finished up his years in Sweden, he came over to North America to play with the Hartford Wolf Pack of the AHL, the minor league affiliate of the Rangers. During his time there, he was the second highest point producer in two consecutive seasons. After a successful pre-season training camp before the 2015-2016 season, Lindberg earned himself a spot on the Rangers roster. In 2017, he changed his club and began to play with the Vegas Golden Knights of the NHL. In the middle of the 2018-19 season, Lindberg was traded to the Ottawa Senators and finished the season there. In 2019, Lindberg moved back to Europe and signed with the EV Zug of the NL. Since 2020, Lindberg is playing with the Dynamo Moskva of the KHL.

Sweden
Lindberg started off playing hockey in his native country of Sweden. While playing in the Swedish U17 and U18 leagues he started becoming well known to scouts. In the 2007-08 season he established his Skellefteå AIK U18 career high in his 31 games played and 19 goals scored. In this same year he made his first debut with the Skellefteå AIK under-20 team by playing in one regular season game and two play-off games with the team. Then in the 2008-09 season, Lindberg was splitting playing for Skellefteå AIK junior team in the J20 SuperElit and Skellefteå AIK U18 in J18 Allsvenskan. He led the Skellefteå AIK U18 in goals, assists and points, was in second for penalty minutes during the regular season, and was third in total play-off points for the U18 team as well.

Lindberg made his senior debut in the 2009-10 season playing 36 regular season games and 10 play-off games with the Skellefteå AIK of the Elitserien. In this season, he also played 30 regular season games and 1 play-off game with the Skellefteå AIK junior team. During this season he led the Skellefteå AIK junior team in points and assists and ranked second for penalty minutes. In the Elitserien he scored one goal over the course of 36 games, made one assist and when it came to the play-offs he scored two goals out of the ten games.

In 2010, he was drafted in round seven as number 178 in the KHL draft by the team Spartak Moskva. In the 2010-11 season, Lindberg played 9 games with the Skellefteå AIK junior team recording 12 points and 41 regular season games and 18 play-off games with the Skellefteå AIK of the Elitserien recording 14 points in the regular season and 7 points during the play-offs.

In the 2011-12 season, Lindberg balanced playing with the Skellefteå AIK in the Elitserien, Skellefteå AIK junior team, and IF Sundsvall Hockey of the HockeyAllsvenskan. Lindberg was established as one of the Elitserien's top nineteen year old centers. During his third Elitserien season with Skellefteå AIK, he scored 10 points in regular season's 46 games and 4 points in play-offs' 18 games. He also scored 4 points in 2 games with the Skellefteå AIK junior team and 2 points in 5 games with the IF Sundsvall Hockey.

In the 2012-13 season, Lindberg had 17 goals and 25 assists including five power plays and four game winning goals. Later in the playoffs, Lindberg won the Stefan Liv Memorial Trophy for the play-offs MVP by leading Skellefteå AIK to win the Elitserien with four goals and eight assists. After his playing in the 2012-13 season, Lindberg earned his 9th place spot in the Rangers prospect rankings by Hockey's Future.

During Lindberg's last season with Skellefteå AIK, he established Elitserien career-highs in games played, goals, assists, points, penalty minutes, and plus/minus rating. He ranked second on the team in assists, third in points, fourth in goals, and was also eighth in the league in points. While leading Skellefteå AIK to the winning of the Elitserien, Lindberg established play-off career-highs in goals, assists, points, penalty minutes, and plus/minus rating. This allowed Lindberg to tie for first in the Elitserien for both playoff assists and playoff points.

NHL Draft
Going into the draft, Lindberg was ranked as the 7th best European skater by the NHL Central Scouting Bureau. According to The Hockey News scouting report, he was a "Pure point producer with very good hockey sense, he also has some two-way ability and a projectable frame. Can be an asset on special teams, as well. However, he needs to become a more consistent performer from game to game at the NHL level. Could stand to shoot the puck more. Also needs to get physically stronger." Oscar Lindberg was drafted 2nd round, 57th overall by the Phoenix Coyotes. Although he was drafted by the Coyotes, they weren't the only ones who wanted him.

On May 8, 2011, the New York Rangers made a trade with the Coyotes to bring the 6'0, 19-year-old into the organization. In the trade, the Rangers sent Ethan Werek to the Coyotes, a 6'2 center, who the Rangers drafted in the 2009 NHL Entry Draft in return for Lindberg. After the trade, Lindberg said "It was very exciting. I was pretty surprised at first when I got the news, but it's going to be fun to be a part of the Rangers organization". Anders Hedberg, a former Rangers star who was the team's Head Professional Scout for Europe at the time, saw Lindberg play several times during his draft year. Hedberg said, "We know a lot about him. He played on the Swedish Under-17 and Under-18 teams, so he was a very well known Swedish prospect. Our scouts had seen him a lot leading up to the draft." After Lindberg was traded to the Rangers, Hedberg was quoted as saying, "European kids his age have never been traded, because there is no trading system in Europe. Usually a trade comes almost as a shock. In many cases they view it as a negative because they think it means there is something wrong with them. But in this case, it was actually the opposite. He was very excited.".

Hartford Wolf Pack
In the summer before the 2013-2014 season, Lindberg came over to the United States to join the Hartford Wolf Pack of the AHL. While the New York Rangers of the NHL wanted Lindberg to play for them, they still felt that he needed to develop his game a little bit. Also, coming from Europe he had to get used to playing on a smaller rink in America. In his first season in North America, Lindberg ranked second on the team in points with 44 points in 75 games.

In his second season with the Wolf Pack, he improved even farther, and scored 56 points in 75 regular season games, which again had him ranked second on the team. Lindberg established career-highs in goals, assists, points, power play goals, plus/minus rating, and shots on goal while also tying AHL career highs in games played and game winning goals. Specifically, Lindberg tied for eighth in the AHL in goals, ranked ninth in shots on goal, and tied for ninth in power play goals. In addition, he ranked second among European born players in the AHL in both goal and points. Lindberg led the Wolf Pack in game winning goals and shots on goal, ranked second in goals, assists, points, and power play goals. He also tied for second in games played and ranked fifth in plus/minus rating. Lindberg skated in 150 career AHL games over two seasons, both with Hartford, registering 46 goals and 54 assists along with a plus-nine rating and 126 penalty minutes. He was the first European-born Rangers prospect who recorded at least 100 points over a two-season span with Hartford since Artem Anisimov in the 2007-08 and 2008-09 seasons. During the season he was given the chance to play up a level in the NHL in one game with the Rangers. The Rangers needed someone to fill in for Rick Nash, and gave Lindberg the chance to do it. After the one game he was sent right back to Hartford but said, "That one game gave me energy, confidence and I played well the rest of the season,".

New York Rangers
Lindberg debuted in the NHL at Madison Square Garden during the 2014-15 season playing as the center of the third line, since Rick Nash was unable to play due to neck spasm. Coach Alain Vigneault said he played alright for his first game and then sent him right back to the AHL at the conclusion of the game. The next summer, Lindberg signed a two-year deal carrying a $650,000 annual salary-cap hit. This carried a provision that he couldn't be sent down without waivers, so if he didn't make the Rangers, it would be difficult to send him back to Hartford without losing him to another team’s waiver claim.

During training camp, it seemed he would either be able to get a spot on the roster by playing in the middle of the third line or as the 13th forward. He scored two goals in four preseason games which earned him the Lars-Erik Sjöberg Award for best rookie at training camp. When playing against the Chicago Blackhawks in the preseason he scored in the first period of the game along with one other rookie. In his first game of the 2015-16 season with the Rangers, Lindberg got 8:18 minutes of playing time and scored two goals. Since he scored on his first shot of the season, he received the “Broadway hat” from his teammates which is considered an honor in the locker room.

Lindberg became the first player for the Rangers to score in the first three games of his rookie season since Steven King in 1992. Head Coach Alain Vigneault said players go through stretches of good games and he did not think it would continue, but appreciated the goals. He was impressed by the rookie's start with 10 goals in the first 27 games, and gave him the opportunity to play center first line with veteran, Rick Nash, and Chris Kreider. Vigneault was then quoted saying “He seems to feel more and more comfortable with more responsibilities. There's no doubt that if we do decide to go this route, those are two pretty good players, might be a good fit for him. We'll see what we come up with”. The Rangers generally were not expecting so much on the offense from Lindberg especially since he changed from center to wing in the transition from AHL to NHL. Yet one teammate, Henrik Lundqvist, said he was expecting him to be good because he follows the Swedish league.

There came a time when the goal streak and playing time did not continue. Lindberg's consistency needed to improve at this level and he needed to get physically stronger. After playing against the Boston Bruins he was benched on January 11, 2016 due to the return of teammate Chris Kreider, who was out for a gash on the top of his right hand for two games. Rangers coach said Lindberg was not benched for playing badly, he had been doing well but is considered the odd guy out and would stay like that if nothing changed.

Lindberg finished the 2015-16 season with the 68 regular season games played recording 28 points for 13 goals and 15 assists and 2 play-off games in which he did not record any point.

In the next season, Lindberg played 65 regular season games in which he scored 20 points for 8 goals and 12 assists and played another 12 games in the play-offs where he recorded 4 points by scoring 3 goals and adding one assist.

Vegas Golden Knights and Ottawa Senators
In 2017, Lindberg was selected 22nd overall in the 2017 NHL Expansion Draft by the brand new team, the Vegas Golden Knights. He spent there the 2017-18 season playing 63 regular season games in which he scored only 11 points for 9 goals and 2 assists. Later in the play-offs, Lindberg played 3 games and recorded one assist.

Lindberg also began the 2018-19 season with the Vegas Golden Knights of the NHL. He played there 35 games and recorded 12 points while scoring 4 goals and 8 assists. In the midseason, he was traded to the Ottawa Senators of the NHL. He finished there the season with 20 games played and 8 points for 5 goals and 3 assists scored.

EV Zug
In 2019, Lindberg moved back to Europe signing with the EV Zug of the NL for the 2019-20 season. He played there 46 games and scored 30 games for 14 goals and 16 assists. He was also the most penalized played of the NL with 91 penalty minutes.

Spartak Moskva
In 2020, Lindberg signed a one-year contract with the Spartak Moskva of the KHL. After the 2020-21 season, Lindberg extended his contract for one another year.

International career
In 2009, Lindberg played with the Swedish National U18 Team at the 2009 World U18 Championship.

During the 2010-11, Lindberg was picked to attend the 2011 World Junior Championship in Buffalo for the Swedish team where in the first game he scored two goals, had two assists, and was also rated as a plus-3 in three of the tournament games. In the bronze medal game against USA, the Ranger scouts truly saw his NHL potential.

He also participated as a member of the Swedish National Team at the 2013 and 2017 World Championship s winning gold medal at both tournaments.

Records and Accomplishments

 * Larserik Sjoberg Recipient 2015- award annually given to best rookie at Ranger's training camp. This was the first time this award had been given out since 2010 when it was won by Derek Stephen.
 * Lindberg is the first player since Steven King in 1992 to score in the first three games of his rookie season.
 * Received the Broadway hat, a locker room honor, after scoring his first shot of the season.
 * Named playoff MVP and received the Stefan Liv Memorial trophy for his contributions which led to Skelleftea winning the Swedish Elite League Championship in 2013.