Brunnstrom Strikes for Three

It was late in the season, then into the playoffs, when Fabian Brunnstrom first poked his head out into the North American hockey world. By late April, early May, he was interviewing teams more than they were interviewing him. This scouting sensation wanted to play in the NHL. Finally, he signed with Dallas and then we had a big question mark beside his name until now.

Brunnstrom did manage to play in some games during the pre-season, including the Traverse City rookie tournament, where he turned some heads and put his name out there with some of the other up-and-coming players of the league. It wasn't until his debut in the regular season last night, where he finally got the attention of everyone.

In Wednesday's game against Nashville, Brunnstrom finally debuted (after being a healthy scratch for the first couple games) for Dallas and led the way in the game with a hat-trick. Not a bad start, especially one so anticipated for the money and the time he commanded from the NHL teams. He's sure to be under a lot of scrutiny, but he's managing to deal with it on his own terms.

Brunnstrom is one of the young players available in Box 9 of the Sheet pool, in case you passed over him. You can use up one of your trades to make him available for yourself starting next week, unless you're one of the few teams that decided to take the gamble on him right away. That's a nice early haul from him, eh?