Red Wings Will Play Two Regular-Season Games in Sweden

The Detroit Red Wings will play two of next season’s regular-season games in Stockholm, Sweden as part of the NHL’s Global 2023 Series.

Detroit will play the Ottawa Senators on Thursday Nov. 16 at Avicii Arena in Stockholm. On the following day, the Red Wings will play the Toronto Maple Leafs in the same arena. The Minnesota Wild will play the Senators on Saturday, Nov. 18 and the Maple Leafs and Wild will play a Sunday afternoon game to finish the series of game.

This will be Detroit’s second trip to Sweden for regular-season games. They lost back-to-back games to the St. Louis Blues on Oct. 2-3, 2009 at the Ericsson Globe in Stockholm.

‘Swedish Red Wings’

The Red Wings are a popular team in Sweden because of their lengthy tradition of drafting Swedish players  This season’s Red Wings’ Swedish contingent included Lucas Raymond, Jonatan Berggren, Magnus Hellberg, Robert Hagg and Simon Edvinsson.  Detroit’s prize prospect Marco Kasper played in the Swedish Hockey League, even though he’s from Austria.

These NHL tours are done to highlight the fact that the NHL is a global league. More than 30 percent of all NHL players come from outside of North America. The four teams scheduled to play in Stockholm showed 36 European players, including 21 Swedes, on their rosters this season. The Red Wings, with 13 Europeans this season, had the most of the four teams heading to Sweden.

[bet-promo id=”4006″ ]

Stockholm has hosted more NHL games than any other city outside of North America. The upcoming games will be the 13th, 14th, 15th and 16 NHL contests to be played in that city.

The 2023 NHL Global Series and will be the Maple Leafs’ first opportunity to play NHL regular-season games outside of North America. Toronto will become the 26th franchise to play a regular-season game abroad. The Red Wings, Wild and Senators have all previously played outside of North America.