{"id":90087,"date":"2019-01-04T10:00:03","date_gmt":"2019-01-04T16:00:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/?p=90087"},"modified":"2020-08-24T13:31:08","modified_gmt":"2020-08-24T18:31:08","slug":"uscho-com-game-of-the-week-bjorkqvist-leads-no-10-providence-into-home-matchup-with-no-16-miami","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/2019\/01\/04\/uscho-com-game-of-the-week-bjorkqvist-leads-no-10-providence-into-home-matchup-with-no-16-miami\/","title":{"rendered":"USCHO.com GAME OF THE WEEK: Bj\u00f6rkqvist leads No. 10 Providence into home series with No. 16 Miami"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"BOSTON,<\/a>
Kasper Bj\u00f6rkqvist has tallied nine goals and nine assists for 18 points through Providence’s first 18 games this season (photo: Rich Gagnon).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Kasper Bj\u00f6rkqvist\u2019s route from his native Finland to playing college hockey wasn\u2019t very typical.<\/p>\n

Often, you\u2019ll find European players attempting to move to the United States a few years prior to matriculating at an NCAA program. They often spend two years playing some level of junior hockey, a move that not only gets them on the radar of college scouts, it also allows them to acclimate themselves to a new country, a new culture<\/p>\n

Bj\u00f6rkqvist took a different approach. His family hired an advisor who contacted multiple college coaches in the hopes of starting a recruiting process.<\/p>\n

One of those school was Providence and coach Nate Leaman.<\/p>\n

To say that Leaman had immediate interest is an understatement.<\/p>\n

\u201cKasper wanted to come to the States to play hockey,\u201d said Leaman. \u201cHis advisor was asking around a little bit about programs. They reached out to us and, obviously, we immediately followed up.\u201d<\/p>\n

That was the start of a four-month recruiting process where Bj\u00f6rkqvist also attained information from schools like Denver, UMass Lowell, Connecticut and Maine.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe wasn\u2019t going to be in a hurry to make a quick decision,\u201d Leaman said. \u201cThe process took a while, but I thought that was in our favor because he got to know our program.\u201d<\/p>\n

Obviously, what Bj\u00f6rkqvist learned about Providence he liked. Three years later, he\u2019s become one of the team\u2019s most dominant offense threats.<\/p>\n

Getting to this point wasn\u2019t simple.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor [Kasper], being away from Finland for the first time, I think there were part of the transition that weren\u2019t easy,\u201d said Leaman. \u201cBut if you know Kasper, he\u2019s a very outgoing kid. He smiles all the time. He\u2019s not one of those guys where it takes a long time to get to know him.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo for him, coming to a school with 4,000 students, this being a little bit of a smaller school, that fit him well.\u201d<\/p>\n

As a freshman, Bj\u00f6rkqvist scored just three goals and three assists in 30 games. While he scored some big goals, including tallies in back-to-back games against eventual Hockey East champion UMass Lowell, he was held off the scoresheet in the postseason.<\/p>\n

Leaman says that adjusting to the style and the practices at the college level as opposed to his teams in Finland wasn\u2019t simple, but he also says that in Year 1, the Finnish rookie ran into some tough luck.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think there was a lot of things new,\u201d said Leaman. \u201cBut he also hit a lot of posts his freshman year, believe it or not. He was getting good chances that just weren\u2019t going in. But his sophomore year, he felt a lot more comfortable.\u201d<\/p>\n

That comfort level showed up on the scoresheet. In 40 games, Bj\u00f6rkqvist scored 16 goals and added another seven assists, finishing tied for the team lead in goals and sixth in overall scoring.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s excellent around the net,\u201d Leaman said. \u201cHe\u2019s a guy who knows how to get to the net. He knows how to screen. He knows that his timing to the net is good and his stick around the net is good.<\/p>\n

\u201cThen you take into account that he\u2019s a really smart hockey player. So you can play him in every situation \u2013 power play, penalty kill, 5-on-5, goalie pulled \u2013 every situation because of his experience and smarts, he\u2019s been able to step in and play.\u201d<\/p>\n

This year, through 18 games he\u2019s a point-a-game player with nine goals and nine assists. Leaman says that he\u2019s continued to make strides in his game, improving in areas that will only further develop him as a player.<\/p>\n

\u201cHis rush offense is what\u2019s really improved and is continuing to improve,\u201d Leaman said. \u201cHe\u2019s wearing the \u2018C\u2019 for us, too. He\u2019s taken on a big leadership role.\u201d<\/p>\n

That ability to be a leader is impressive for a player who less than three years ago was playing in his homeland of Finland, likely not spending much of his time speaking English as his primary language. Now, three years into his college hockey career, he captains one of the top teams in the nation.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s a vocal leader,\u201d said Leaman. \u201cFor him to feel good being vocal, that really tells you a lot of about him and who he is.\u201d<\/p>\n

Leaman understands that while having Bj\u00f6rkqvist on his roster this season is nice, there was also interest from the Pittsburgh Penguins, who drafted Bj\u00f6rkqvist in the second round in 2016. Retaining him for three years is great. A fourth year could be a challenge.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was put out there for him [to sign after his sophomore year],\u201d said Leaman. \u201cHe had a really good experience when he went back home and he was invited to try out for the [Finnish] World Championship team. While he was there, he was in Week 3 and he suffered an injury. That was unfortunate but it was a really good experience for him.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was able to use that as another platform for growth. Going through that process was when he decided to come back to college.\u201d<\/p>\n

There certainly is a lot of hockey left to play in Bj\u00f6rkqvist\u2019s college career, beginning this weekend with a series that looms large against No. 16 Miami. With Providence sitting at 11th in the PairWise, Leaman understand that this is an important series that truly kicks off his team\u2019s second half.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a big series for us,\u201d said Leaman. \u201cThis is going to be a fun second half. The top five in our league all play each other. We\u2019ve played five of our first 18 games at home. So we\u2019ve been on the road. We get to kind of flip that and be home a lot more in the second half.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kasper Bj\u00f6rkqvist\u2019s route from his native Finland to playing college hockey wasn\u2019t very typical (photo: Rich Gagnon).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":110509,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[935],"tags":[812],"coauthors":[800],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nUSCHO.com GAME OF THE WEEK: Bj\u00f6rkqvist leads No. 10 Providence into home series with No. 16 Miami - College Hockey | USCHO.com<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Kasper Bj\u00f6rkqvist\u2019s route from his native Finland to playing college hockey wasn\u2019t very typical (photo: Rich Gagnon).\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90087\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"USCHO.com GAME OF THE WEEK: Bj\u00f6rkqvist leads No. 10 Providence into home series with No. 16 Miami - 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