Lars-Erik Sjöberg
Date of birth | May 4, 1944 |
place of birth | Falun , Sweden |
date of death | October 20, 1987 |
Place of death | Uppsala , Sweden |
Nickname | Taxis, Professor, Little General |
size | 173 cm |
Weight | 75 kg |
position | defender |
Shot hand | Left |
Career stations | |
until 1965 | Leksands IF |
1965-1967 | Djurgårdens IF |
1967-1969 | Leksands IF |
1969-1974 | Västra Frölunda IF |
1974-1980 | Winnipeg Jets |
Lars-Erik "Taxen" Sjöberg (born May 4, 1944 in Falun ; † October 20, 1987 in Uppsala ) was a Swedish ice hockey player and scout , who in the course of his active career between 1961 and 1980, among other things, 79 games for the Winnipeg Jets in the National Hockey League (NHL) and 347 other games in the World Hockey Association (WHA) on the position of defender . Sjöberg, who was the second team captain in the Jets franchise history , won the WHA Avco World Trophy three times with the team between 1976 and 1979 . In addition, he was with the Swedish national team three times vice world and European champion and led his home club Leksands IF in 1969 as Sweden's player of the year to win the national championship . Sjöberg is considered the best Swedish defender of the late 1960s and early 1970s.
Career
Sjöberg, who was born in Falun , spent his junior career in Leksand, about 50 kilometers away . There he went through the youth department of Leksands IF and made his debut in the 1961/62 season at the age of 17 in the men's team, which at that time belonged to the first-class Division 1 . Ultimately, the defender established himself in the first team's regular squad at the beginning of the 1963/64 season , after winning the Swedish championship with the club's U20 team in the preseason. The young player quickly developed into a regular player and spent three full seasons with his home club. Then Sjöberg moved to the league competitor Djurgårdens IF from the state capital Stockholm before the 1965/66 season . He spent two years at the capital club before the defender returned to Leksand.
Back in the service of Leksands IF, Sjöberg played there in the defense again from the 1967/68 season . He led the club in the following season to win the Swedish championship for the first time . He himself was awarded the guldpucken as Sweden's player of the year. Sjöberg left his home club again after this success and moved to Västra Frölunda IF in Gothenburg in the summer of 1969 . There the defensive player acted as team captain for the next five years . During his time at Frölunda, he was awarded the Rinkens riddare in 1973 . He was also elected to the Swedish All-Star Team of the Year in 1974. Due to Sjöberg's high quality offensive and defensive play, the Winnipeg Jets from the World Hockey Association (WHA) became aware of the Swede in the summer of 1974 . The Jets, who signed numerous players from Scandinavia at the time, signed Sjöberg before the 1974/75 season .
In his first season in North America, the defender was able to convince with 60 scorer points . His achievements earned him the appointment of team captain of the Jets before the following season. This made him the first ever Swede to receive this honor in North America. In this position, Sjöberg won the Avco World Trophy with Winnipeg for the first time at the end of the 1975/76 season . The franchise repeated this success in the 1977/78 game year , when the Scandinavian was also awarded the Dennis A. Murphy Trophy as the best defensive player in the league and was appointed to the WHA First All-Star Team . Since he completed only a few games in the following season, he gave the captaincy in the 1978/79 season to Barry Long , but celebrated with the team the third title win within four years. With the dissolution of the WHA and the inclusion of the Winnipeg Jets in the National Hockey League (NHL) for the 1979/80 season, Sjöberg - now team captain again - played with the Jets in the NHL. Following the 1979/80 season, he ended his active career at the age of 36.
After the end of his career, Sjöberg returned to his home in Sweden. He settled in Uppsala and entered his professional life successfully as a businessman. He also worked as a scout for the New York Rangers on the European market between 1981 and 1987 . There he discovered Tomas Sandström , Jan Erixon , Kjell Samuelsson , Ulf Dahlén and Raimo Helminen for the North American market. Sjöberg died in October 1987 at the age of 43 in his adopted country of complications from cancer . After his death in 1993 he was posthumously honored as an Honored Member of the Manitoba Hockey Hall of Fame and in 2012 he was inducted into the Swedish Ice Hockey Hall of Fame .
International
For his home country, Sjöberg took part with the Swedish national team in two Olympic Winter Games , five world championships and the first Canada Cup in 1976 .
The defender completed his first major international tournament at the 1968 Winter Olympics in Grenoble , France , in which the Swedes finished fourth and thus missed a medal. The 24-year-old was used in all seven tournament games. Before that, he had been on the U18, U20 and B national team from 1960 . In the year after the Olympic Games, he completed his first of five world championships, all of which he was able to conclude with a medal. At the world championships in 1969 , 1970 and 1973 , the Tre Kronor won the silver medal in both the world and simultaneously played European championships . In 1972 and 1974 he won the bronze medal in both competitions. In total, Sjöberg completed 48 World Cup games, in which he scored seven goals and prepared six more. In the 1973 and 1974 world championships, Sjöberg led the Swedish squad as team captain . He also received the award for the best defender of the tournament in 1974 and was appointed to the All-Star Team.
Between the five world championship appearances, the defender played the 1972 Winter Olympics in Sapporo , Japan , which, like four years earlier, ended in fourth place in the final ranking. The last time Sjöberg was on the ice for the Swedish national team was the first Canada Cup in 1976. There they also ranked fourth at the end of the tournament. In total, he completed 134 appearances for the national team in the course of his career.
Achievements and Awards
|
|
International
|
|
Career statistics
Regular season | Playoffs | |||||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
season | team | league | Sp | T | V | Pt | SM | Sp | T | V | Pt | SM | ||
1961/62 | Leksands IF | Division 1 | 3 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | - | - | - | - | - | ||
1962/63 | Leksands IF | Division 1 | 9 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | - | - | - | - | - | ||
1963/64 | Leksands IF | Division 1 | 18th | 1 | 3 | 4th | 2 | 7th | 1 | 1 | 2 | 0 | ||
1964/65 | Leksands IF | Division 1 | 28 | 0 | 2 | 2 | 8th | - | - | - | - | - | ||
1965/66 | Djurgårdens IF | Division 1 | 20th | 1 | 5 | 6th | 0 | 3 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | ||
1966/67 | Djurgårdens IF | Division 1 | 20th | 4th | 7th | 11 | 2 | 3 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | ||
1967/68 | Leksands IF | Division 1 | 21st | 3 | 3 | 6th | 6th | 7th | 1 | 3 | 4th | 2 | ||
1968/69 | Leksands IF | Division 1 | 19th | 6th | 2 | 8th | 2 | 7th | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | ||
1969/70 | Västra Frölunda IF | Division 1 | 14th | 2 | 1 | 3 | 10 | - | - | - | - | - | ||
1970/71 | Västra Frölunda IF | Division 1 | 27 | 12 | 8th | 20th | 4th | - | - | - | - | - | ||
1971/72 | Västra Frölunda IF | Division 1 | 27 | 4th | 11 | 15th | 4th | - | - | - | - | - | ||
1972/73 | Västra Frölunda IF | Division 1 | 14th | 1 | 6th | 7th | 0 | - | - | - | - | - | ||
1973/74 | Västra Frölunda IF | Division 1 | 14th | 0 | 4th | 4th | 4th | - | - | - | - | - | ||
1974/75 | Winnipeg Jets | WHA | 75 | 7th | 53 | 60 | 30th | - | - | - | - | - | ||
1975/76 | Winnipeg Jets | WHA | 81 | 5 | 36 | 41 | 12 | 13 | 0 | 5 | 5 | 12 | ||
1976/77 | Winnipeg Jets | WHA | 52 | 2 | 38 | 40 | 31 | 20th | 0 | 6th | 6th | 22nd | ||
1977/78 | Winnipeg Jets | WHA | 78 | 11 | 39 | 50 | 72 | 9 | 0 | 9 | 9 | 4th | ||
1978/79 | Winnipeg Jets | WHA | 9 | 0 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 10 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4th | ||
1979/80 | Winnipeg Jets | NHL | 79 | 7th | 27 | 34 | 48 | - | - | - | - | - | ||
Division 1 total | 234 | 35 | 53 | 88 | 52 | 27 | 2 | 7th | 9 | 2 | ||||
WHA total | 295 | 25th | 169 | 194 | 147 | 52 | 1 | 22nd | 23 | 42 |
International
Represented Sweden at:
( Legend for player statistics: Sp or GP = games played; T or G = goals scored; V or A = assists scored ; Pkt or Pts = scorer points scored ; SM or PIM = penalty minutes received ; +/− = plus / minus balance; PP = overpaid goals scored ; SH = underpaid goals scored ; GW = winning goals scored; 1 play-downs / relegation )
Web links
- Lars-Erik Sjöberg at legendsofhockey.net ( Memento from October 12, 2016 in the Internet Archive )
- Lars-Erik Sjöberg at eliteprospects.com (English)
Individual evidence
- ^ Lars-Erik Sjoberg. In: nytimes.com. New York Times , October 21, 1987, accessed May 17, 2020 .
personal data | |
---|---|
SURNAME | Sjöberg, Lars-Erik |
ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Sjoberg, Lars-Erik; Taxis (nickname) |
BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Swedish ice hockey player and scout |
DATE OF BIRTH | May 4, 1944 |
PLACE OF BIRTH | Falun , Sweden |
DATE OF DEATH | October 20, 1987 |
Place of death | Uppsala , Sweden |