Swedish defenseman Victor Söderström wore this white set jersey during his rookie season in North American hockey with the Tucson Roadrunners.
Söderström was the Arizona Coyotes first round draft pick in 2019 (11th overall), and is hoped to be the heir apparent to Oliver Ekman-Larsson — or at least the OEL we used to know a few years back.
Coming into the 2019 NHL Draft, the youngster was described as “An uber competitive two-way defenceman who thinks the game at the highest level” and a player whose “battle level is through the roof” by Elite Prospects. Former GM John Chayka was so enamored with Söderström that after the draft he told the media, “We weren’t leaving the draft without him. We were going to do whatever it took to get up and get [Söderström].”
Soda spent the majority of the 2020-2021 season in the AHL with the Tucson Roadrunners after spending the previous season with Brynäs IF of the SHL. He didn’t exactly dominate the way some fans might have hoped, but there were definitely positive signs from his first year on the smaller ice.
Victor Soderstrom shown here in a photomatch to a game against the San Diego Gulls on March 27th, 2021. (photo credit: San Diego Gulls)
This particular Söderström gamer is an interesting one insofar as Roadrunners game worn jerseys go.
In previous seasons, nearly every player wore just one white and one red set jersey per season. There were a couple of exceptions such as Conor Garland, Dylan Strome, Christian Fischer, and other players whose jerseys were in rough enough shape to require a replacement.
Researching this Söderström sweater, however, made it very obvious that Söderström wore two separate white set jerseys in 2020-2021.
This gamer appears to be the one Soda wore for the first half of the season — February 7th through March 27th, in 9 different games. Ironically, the jersey that would be White Set 2 has more wear and markings despite being worn in just six contests.
Soda’s White Set 1 gamer is relatively clean of stick/puck marks beyond a decent sized slash mark near the left collarbone that appears in at least one photomatch. The right sleeve also has a couple of light marks.
The left sleeve shows most of the wear with a cluster of repairs below the elbow and close to the hem of the sleeve. There are also a few faint marks on that side as well.
The back of the jersey is clean beyond a small mark near the left sleeve numbers that led to one other photomatch. Söderström has signed the jersey on the numbers and it has AHL Authentic tagging.
The young Swede scored his first AHL point on Valentine’s Day and his first AHL goal on February 24th.
From my research, it appears both milestones were accomplished in this sweater.
Söderström began the season in the NHL with the Arizona Coyotes before being sent down after 2 games, and received another call up at the end of the season where he received increased playing time and scored his first NHL goal.
The organization seems pleased with his development thus far, and he’ll definitely be vying for a roster slot in Glendale to begin the 2021-2022 season.
In the meantime, Coyotes fans will dream about what a potential high leverage duo of Jakob Chychrun on the left and Victor Söderström on the right might look like in crunch time for years to come.