Leafs' prospect blossoms in NCAA

It is the great Canadian dream, to grow up to be an NHL star. But there are hockey dreamers in other countries, and Viktor Stalberg was one of them.

Little Viktor, and he was little back then, used to imagine leaving Sweden for a life in the National Hockey League. It was all he wanted to do. Kids, though, become teenagers. Expectations change. And Stalberg's dreams grew less grand as the years passed. Playing for Frolunda in Sweden's top junior league, his teammates and his opponents kept getting bigger while little Viktor stayed small.

"Until I was 16 years old, I was probably one of the better players in my region, if not in all of Sweden," Stalberg says. "But I just didn't grow. Guys I played with were all 6-foot-3 and 185 pounds, and I was 5-foot-7."

Size matters, even in Sweden, and so Frolunda cut the pint-sized forward loose. Stalberg downgraded his dreams from wanting to play in the best league in the world to hopefully, with some luck, landing a scholarship to an NCAA Division III school.

But while he was waiting for a U.S. college to call, little Viktor began to grow. Now, Viktor Stalberg is a 6foot-3, 200-pound Division I star at the University of Vermont, and a candidate for the Hobey Baker Award given to the top player in the U.S. college game. He is also dreaming again, about playing in the NHL.

"Do I think Viktor is ready to play in the NHL right now? Probably not," Vermont's head coach Kevin Sneddon says. "But the bottom line is, he is 6-foot-3 and the fastest skater in college hockey. He has a quick-release shot, and there are a lot of parts to his game that are already at the NHL level. I think the Leafs are going to be very happy to have him some day. I just hope that day isn't too soon."

The Toronto Maple Leafs picked the late blooming Swede in the sixth round of the 2006 NHL draft. Sixthround draft picks are not supposed to pan out. They are hockey's 100-1 shots. When the talking heads make declarations about the Leafs' cupboards being bare, the sixth-round picks are not even considered.

But maybe on the bottom shelf in the back corner of the Leafs' cupboards there is a big Swede waiting. Dallas Eakins, Toronto's director of player development, has made multiple visits to Vermont this season to watch Stalberg play.

"I think it was Viktor I went to see my very first weekend on the road," Eakins says. "What struck me was that you'd be sitting there, and Viktor would come out for his first shift and you'd be like, 'Oh man, this is a very good player at the college level.' And then you'd be sitting there and thinking, did I just miss three rounds of shifts, because you wouldn't see him. He would disappear, and then he would come back and give you another teaser shift."

Eakins told Stalberg to stop being a tease. He wanted him to be assertive, and to believe that he was the best player out there every shift - and not just every fourth shift - because he was the best player out there when he wanted to be.

It was the same message Stalberg kept hearing from his coach.

"They want me to keep using my speed as much as possible and to really focus on being a threat every time I step on the ice," says the 23year-old.

Stalberg has a 3.6 grade point average, and is majoring in business administration - not basket weaving - and so he took the instructions to heart. As soon as he did, the pucks started going in and Vermont began climbing in the NCAA polls. Stalberg currently leads the Hockey East Division with 20 goals and 36 points in 32 games.

"This is my first year here where I have had a player that is so dominant," Sneddon says.

The Leafs know about big, dominant Swedes. In fact, Mats Sundin is Stalberg's favourite player.

But big Viktor Stalberg, the late bloomer, may need a few more years to grow.

"He is a standout player on his team, and he is somebody if you went to a game you would notice him, and he is on the right track," says Eakins. "But development for these guys is like climbing a mountain. You don't just go straight up. You go up a little bit, and then you go down through a valley to get to the next rise. And he has had his ups and downs, but he continues to climb that mountain."