To this day, Marcus Kruger can picture facing Dennis Rasmussen as junior players in Sweden.
There was one thing about Rasmussen that Kruger always remembered.
“He had white gloves,” Kruger said. “There wasn’t anyone else in the whole junior league that had it. The white gloves I remember, and he was a good player. He was one of the top players and then the white gloves made him even more noticeable out there.”
Rasmussen admits now the white glove were probably a poor choice and were “kind of ugly.” But the actual point of the story is Rasmussen and Kruger were peers growing up in Sweden. They were born less than two months apart, lived within a few hours of each other and were two of the better players at their age. They went up against each other in various Swedish leagues and played together on junior national teams. They both played for Sweden in the World Junior Championship in 2009.
Eventually, they went their separate ways. Kruger was drafted by the Blackhawks in the fifth round in 2009 and made his NHL debut in 2011. Rasmussen was bypassed in his NHL draft-eligible years, remained in Sweden and had to find another way to the NHL.
This is Rasmussen’s story.
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The draft-eligible years
Rasmussen was a good enough player to be considered to be an NHL draft pick. The Blackhawks even had him on a list.
“I remember his draft year,” Blackhawks scouting director Mats Hallin said. “We had him. It was the legs maybe, the speed and the quickness. But if you work real hard, you can improve that and find a way.”
Rasmussen had an idea most NHL teams thought of him that way. They liked him to an extent, but there was no guarantee anyone was actually going to select him.
Rasmussen built up some hope the three years he was draft eligible. He wasn’t glued to a television or the Internet at home in Sweden, but he paid enough attention to follow where his friends were going and whether any team drafted him.
“I always had friends who were going to get picked,” Rasmussen said. “I always watched the draft. I always followed it, especially the first round. After that, it’s pretty hard to stream the draft live. I always saw the updates and everything.”
Each time the updates didn’t bring good news. He was prepared for that, though.
“I knew it was a possibility,” Rasmussen said. “Almost every year I talked to some team, but then ended up not getting drafted. … Wasn’t really tough days. I knew it was going to be like 50/50 if I get drafted or not. It wasn’t really tough, but, of course, I wanted to get drafted.”
Dennis Rasmussen grew up a few hours away from Marcus Kruger in Sweden. (Dennis Wierzbicki/USA TODAY Sports)
Another path
Rasmussen didn’t allow his NHL dream to end with those drafts.
Rasmussen has a reputation of being a positive and cheerful person, and he applied those attributes to his situation. He didn’t believe his odds of making the NHL were any worse after going undrafted.
“No, I didn’t think that way,” Rasmussen said. “I just thought if I work hard and prepare myself and do everything I can, I’m going to give myself the best chance to get there. That’s all I’ve been thinking about.
“It’s always been my goal to play in the NHL even though I didn’t get drafted. I was a little bit disappointed every year of course. But you can look at it different ways. I could pick a team and choose whatever team I wanted when I developed later.”
Rasmussen was successful in the Sweden’s junior leagues and was making a name for himself in Sweden’s second division, Allsvenskan, by the 2010-11 season. He had 33 points in 48 games for VIK Vasteras HK that season.
One of VIK Vasteras HK’s competitors in Allsvenskan was the Vaxjo Lakers. The Lakers finished in first in Allsvenskan in the 2010-11 season and earned a promotion to Sweden’s top league, which is now called the Swedish Hockey League. With the team’s move up, Lakers general manager Henrik Evertsson was seeking young and promising talent to inject into his team. Rasmussen, who turned 21 prior to the 2011-12 season, was the ideal player to bring with the Lakers to the top league.
“I guess we saw the tools,” Evertsson said in a phone interview from Sweden. “Dennis had the tools. He also has an iron-strong will that he just wants to succeed. He’s so determined. We felt us being a pretty young organization we didn’t have that many from our own system that we could move up. Dennis was a fairly young kid with all this will. We had a couple of veterans, but behind them we needed guys like Dennis to really show everybody that it was possible to do stuff.
“We had a lot of patience with him, but he also showed improvement the whole time. He worked his ass off every day, which kind of led us to believe this is going to be good at the end of the day and it was.”
Dennis Rasmussen has often centered the fourth line this season. (Dennis Wierzbicki/USA TODAY Sports)
Patience and perseverance
Rasmussen is grateful today for just how much Evertsson and the Lakers believed in him.
Rasmussen was nowhere near being a finished product when he joined the Lakers. It was an adjustment for him and the organization to play against better competition. In his first season, he had 17 points in 55 games and the Lakers finished in ninth place.
Evertsson remained confident in Rasmussen’s potential, and Rasmussen eventually came through for him. Rasmussen improved his second season and had 28 points in 42 games. In his third season, he had 40 points in 52 games.
“A guy that meant a lot to me when I was there was [Evertsson],” Rasmussen said. “He brought me there. He really believed in me. He really gave me a lot of chances even though sometimes I didn’t score. He still gave me a lot of chances to play on the first line. Suddenly, I ended up scoring a lot of points and had multi-point games.”
As Evertsson explained, the Lakers’ future sort of depended on Rasmussen’s growth.
“I remember often talking about it’s not a matter of him getting time on a power play, we need him to play on the power play,” Evertsson said. “If he doesn’t play on the power play, we’re in trouble. Often maybe young kids they feel frustrated because they feel they should be given time. We were kind of telling Dennis that you need to play well on the power play or we’re in trouble. I think that was a good spot for an ambitious young kid to be needed.
“At the same time, we could all preach patience. I think it was maybe what got him to develop more than the average guy because that’s definitely what happened. You don’t see a lot of careers propelling like Dennis’ did.”
That’s the thing. While Evertsson believed Rasmussen could be an impactful player in the SHL, Evertsson wasn’t so sure Rasmussen was a future NHL player. Whether or not Rasmussen was going to get there, Evertsson tried to teach Rasmussen to take the necessary steps to achieve his goals.
“The work ethic of Dennis, you never had to question that,” Evertsson said. “It was more of a matter channeling it to being a healthy work ethic. I think Dennis when he came to us struggled a little bit with being somewhat overambitious where he would want everything to happen pretty much overnight and he’d get really disappointed and really came down hard on himself when not succeeding.
“If we did anything, I think we helped Dennis stay the path and let time play out his role and kind of pressure the small steps, the little steps instead of just counting on huge things to happen and be disappointed when they didn’t. That’s by far Dennis’ biggest asset — that he’s coachable. He’s a smart kid. He’s such a good kid. Talking to him about these things always sat well with him. .. He was dead set on making it to the NHL. I’ll be honest with you, I’m not sure even I believed that he would make it to the NHL at the time. But that’s why this job is fun. You get surprised.”
Dennis Rasmussen is set to become a restricted free agent after the season. (Jasen Vinlove/USA TODAY Sports)
Becoming the example
Rasmussen’s offensive game had gone to another level in the SHL by his third season, but he also maintained a reliable defensive game. And that was his ticket to the NHL.
The Blackhawks had already had some success with Kruger as a bottom-6 center. They liked similar traits in Rasmussen as a defensive forward.
After Rasmussen’s 2013-14 SHL season, which ended in the Lakers’ first playoff appearance, he was contacted by a few NHL teams. The Blackhawks were one of them, and they already had a special place in Rasmussen’s heart because he attended a Blackhawks game in Chicago during his first trip to the United States as a seven-year-old.
It was only fitting the Blackhawks wanted him. Prior to his 24th birthday, Rasmussen chose to sign with the Blackhawks for a few different reasons.
“They seemed like they really wanted me,” Rasmussen said. “It was a dream to come back here too for me and my whole family.”
The Blackhawks envisioned Rasmussen fitting into a specific role.
“Not a lot of players, but there are players over there who can play in this league if they adapt to a small piece on the team,” Hallin said. “I think he does. He’s just happy to be here now and work on the small details and be coachable, listen to the coaches and teammates and find a way. He knew and I knew he was not going to be coming here and be the [Artemi] Panarin type of player.”
Rasmussen began his adaptation to what the Blackhawks wanted from him with the Rockford IceHogs during the 2014-15 season. He played the entire season in the AHL and had 27 points in 73 games and helped the IceHogs on the penalty kill. Rasmussen began last season in Rockford, but then was recalled for the first time in December after continuing to prove himself in the AHL.
“Attitude and work ethic were off the charts,” Blackhawks minor league affiliations senior director Mark Bernard said. “And his mind, he thinks the game very well. I thought from year one to year two his pace, his NHL pace, he worked extremely hard. The way that he plays, like Coach Q [Joel Quenneville] likes to call it a safe player, he makes good decisions. He’s good on the penalty kill and he’s taking advantage of the opportunity. … He always came to the rink with a smile on his face, wanting to get better. He knew what he wanted and went after it.”
Rasmussen had a memorable NHL debut on Dec. 8, 2015 by scoring a goal on his third shift. He didn’t stick the remainder of the season in the NHL, but he played in 44 games. He’s been in the NHL from the start this season and has appeared in 47 games.
“Maybe he took a little longer road there,” Kruger said of Rasmussen in the NHL. “His hometown team played in the second division, so he was patient and got better and better every year. Then becoming a top player in the Swedish League and then coming over here, he’s been taking step by step. Here too, I think he’s been taking step by step and getting better and better and getting more ice time. He’s doing a really good job.”
Coincidentally while Kruger’s been out of the lineup the last three-plus weeks, it’s been Rasmussen who has replaced a lot of Kruger’s shorthanded ice time on the penalty kill.
Rasmussen isn’t content as a player, but he has allowed himself to enjoy what he’s accomplished. The NHL was his dream, and he was able to attain it.
“It means a lot of course,” said Rasmussen, who is now 26 and on the final year of his contract. “This is all I ever wanted was to play here. I think it can help other guys too, show you don’t have to get drafted to get to the NHL. There has been lots of ups and down in my career. When I was younger, I wasn’t always the star on my team. I had to work hard pretty much the whole of my career. That’s what I’ve done.”
Back in Sweden, Evertsson uses Rasmussen as the example of a player who made it.
“I often say when we sign young players we want players who don’t want to play here,” Evertsson said. “We want guys who want to play higher up, even though we play the highest league in Sweden. So, we want players who are making it to the national team or the NHL because if they’re satisfied with just walking into the door here we’ll send them packing before you know it.
“In order to be trustworthy when we say stuff like that, we need to point at examples. Dennis is one of them where we can say that, ‘Hey, we had Dennis Rasmussen here. He came from the same background as you did. If you work hard, you too can play for the Blackhawks or whatever other NHL organization.’”
