The Should-Be Olympian No One Is Talking About
Emil Heineman arrived on Long Island as a supposed “throw-in” in the Noah Dobson trade — but five months later, he’s become one of the team's most impactful forwards. He deserves to make Team Sweden.
When the Noah Dobson deal officially came through, the two first-round picks coming to Long Island were the standouts. Bottom-six forward Emil Heineman, who had already been traded twice before in his young career, was looked at as a throw-in, initially.
But was there more to see with the Swedish forward?
General manager Mathieu Darche seemed to think so, telling us that Heineman was a must in the return:
“We really wanted him in the trade. So we pushed till the end for him to be in the trade, because he’s a player the league kind of discovered this year. He had a great start to the year, and people remember, but around Christmas, it was going great. Then he got, unfortunately, hit by a car in Utah, and missed two months, which stole his year, but you saw in his first year in the NHL, he scored 10 goals playing mostly on the fourth line. So we see potential. He’s a strong kid who skates great. He’s got a rocket of a shot, like, if you look at his goals, it’s a high-velocity shot that can score. So we still have potential in this player. The cap hit, you know, right now works. It helps us maybe create other opportunities somewhere else, because he’s an NHL player. He’s an established NHL player now, and we feel he can only improve in the coming years.”
Flash-forward about five months, and Heineman has lived up to the hype.