STOCKHOLM — As the Red Wings wound down their practice Tuesday ahead of this week’s NHL Global Series games in Sweden, the team circled around their lone Swedish player for a center-ice stretch.
Minutes earlier, the team — or rather, half of it, divided up for a head-to-head drill — had swarmed Lucas Raymond after scoring the drill-winning goal. Soon after, he was the subject of reporters’ questions to his coach and teammates reviewing him as a host.
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This is all to say that as the Global Series kicks off this week, the spotlight has had no trouble finding Raymond. Which is only right: Getting to play an NHL game in his home country is a rare opportunity.
“I probably can’t appreciate how much it means to him, coming to his home country,” Red Wings head coach Derek Lalonde said. “I think it’s pretty cool.”
It also happens to be coming at the perfect time. While Raymond’s status as the Red Wings’ only Swede would have made him a slam-dunk focal point no matter how he was playing, he’s showcasing some of the best hockey of his young NHL career.
Since Raymond reported to training camp 12 pounds stronger than last season, his summer gains have made for an obvious storyline. Through 15 games, his five goals and 11 points both rank in the top three on the Red Wings and would put him on pace for career highs. He’s looked the part, too, winning battles where he had previously looked overmatched and turning them fluidly into offense.
It’s fitting that this season would lead him back through Sweden, where he laid the groundwork over the summer to take charge of his career’s direction.
“I think he obviously was disappointed with how last season went,” Raymond’s linemate and Red Wings captain Dylan Larkin said recently. “And I know, it’s hard — (the) second year is hard. I don’t know why, but a lot of guys struggle, and it’s kind of proven. I think he wanted to do everything he could to come back in shape and ready to go.”
Prodigy was the word that defined the early stages of Raymond’s career.
The No. 4 pick in 2020, the dazzling young winger from Gothenburg was Detroit’s highest pick in 30 years. He burst onto the scene just one year later with a torrid 23-goal, 57-point campaign at age 19, making the All-Rookie team and finishing top-five for the Calder Trophy.
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Between that instant success and the inevitable — at times unrealistic — hopes that come with such lofty draft status, expectations were through the roof going into Year 2.
Instead, Raymond found adversity in his second season. The points that seemed to come so easy as a rookie were suddenly much harder to find.
Larkin had some experience with this: After his high-flying rookie season back in 2015, he too had seen his production drop off considerably in Year 2. The “sophomore slump” wouldn’t be a trope if it weren’t common.
After playing together for the better part of Raymond’s two seasons, he and Larkin grew close. And though Raymond said Larkin’s approach with him was “more like a support, and then kind of just letting me find my own way,” Larkin shared his perspective.
“One thing I talked to him about was just, every night you’ve gotta show up,” Larkin said. “You never know what’s going to happen, you never know — if you’re struggling, you never know when it’s going to change, and you find a little small thing and that gets your confidence going and then you take off from there.”
Some things, though, can only be learned through living.
“Everyone goes through it in some form,” Larkin said. “The rare ones don’t, but I really think it’s dialing yourself in and understanding what it takes, and that goes into nutrition and working out in the summer, knowing what it takes to go through an 82-game season.”
After his second season, Raymond understood that. So he went home to Sweden and met with his trainer, Andreas Larsson, to make a plan for the offseason.
Raymond and Larsson trace their relationship back to their time at Gothenburg’s Frölunda Hockey Club, where Larsson was a skating coach as Raymond climbed the junior ranks. Right around Raymond’s draft season, he progressed from working with Larsson through the club to joining his professional training group, which has included clients such as the Los Angeles Kings’ Kevin Fiala and Boston’s Hampus Lindholm over the years.
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Even from overseas, Larsson keeps in touch with Raymond throughout the regular season, estimating they have weekly contact despite a six-hour time difference. He tries to watch every Red Wings game, so that even if they don’t talk about a specific game, he has a clear picture of Raymond’s season as it plays out.
So, after another early end to Detroit’s season, Raymond got right to work with Larsson, preparing first to play for Team Sweden at the World Championship. After that ended, his goal was clear: “getting stronger, getting bigger,” Raymond said, “but not losing explosiveness or agility, and being able to move the way I want to out there.”
It’s not an uncommon goal, of course — what young player doesn’t want or need to get stronger? — but it did come at a significant moment.
Raymond’s 2023-24 season would be the platform year for his next contract. That can be a big swing moment for a player financially, with the potential to help lock in a big-money, long-term deal or result in a shorter-term bridge that tends to delay any big payday. And like anyone in his position, Raymond was well aware.
“Obviously I would be lying if you said you didn’t focus on it,” he said. “Of course, you focus on it. But I think what I came to, kind of a conclusion, is that the only thing I’m focused about is playing good hockey. Starting in the summer doing everything right to be a good player. And that’s not anything to do with if it’s my second, third year on my contract. It’s about: I want to be a good player, and I want this team to be successful. So, it’s more that, and then I think out of that will lead to good things.”
So, he got to work.
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Larsson’s professional group works Monday through Friday, with weekends off, the whole summer. They meet at 8 a.m. each day with a coffee and a defined purpose. Monday is for speed and explosiveness. Tuesday is weight training and conditioning. Wednesday is skate-specific. Thursday is back to weights and conditioning. And Friday is all about lactic acid.
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“There is no chance to be good in hockey,” Larsson says, “if you cannot work with lactic acid in your legs. So you have to work with that, continually. … You’re gonna have that one rush, and then you’re gonna be fatigued in the game. So you have to be able to be fast repeatedly, with lactic acid.”
Larsson was a speedskater by trade, and, accordingly, this came to be a central focus for him.
“You just bend your knees, and after some minutes in that position, your legs will scream for oxygen, and then you stay bended, and then you work with the lactic acid. You have to learn how to deal with it in the skating position. And that’s what a speedskater is really good at. You get lactic acid after one lap, and then you have 24 to go.”
Hearing it in those terms, it’s not hard to understand why he gives his players the weekends off.
But that still means significant work Monday through Friday, and while his reputation is built on his skating background, Larsson estimates about 80 percent of his professional program is off-ice work. That’s extra relevant to Raymond — in addition to taking approximately 200 shots a day in the shooting range, he also had to build in three extra weight sessions for his individualized goals.
Larsson knew, though, that the key to Raymond achieving his goals rested on what happened when he left those daily trainings, specifically with nutrition.
“So I asked him, ‘Are you comfortable making those perfect lunches and dinners?’” Larsson said. “And he said, ‘No.’
“OK,” Larsson responded. “I have a guy.”
Larsson arranged a meeting with himself, Raymond, a nutritionist and a chef to design a plan. Larsson would handle the workouts. The nutritionist determined his caloric needs. And the chef made boxed lunches and dinners for seven days a week that Raymond could refrigerate and microwave. Then they adjusted along the way.
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Raymond paid for all of this himself, Larsson said. And while he makes a very good living as an NHL player, that investment in himself and his career still speaks to why, when Larsson was asked what differences he noticed in Raymond this summer, he pointed first toward maturity, including in nutrition — which can be “boring,” especially for young players.
“You have a small window of opportunity to really position yourself like Lucas did now,” Larsson said. “He could have said, ‘Yeah, I’m gonna try to gain 12 pounds,’ and then didn’t care about it. But he was really focused on fulfilling his dream.”
The results of Raymond’s summer work have been seen by anyone who’s watched him early this season.
Perhaps the loudest example came in the Red Wings’ home opener, when Raymond laid a thundering hit on Tampa Bay’s Michael Eyssimont, sending him into the Red Wings bench.
“I did notice it a lot there,” Raymond joked.
Lucas Raymond puts Eyssimont into the bench and the LCA ERUPTS! Huge hit. 🔥 #LGRW pic.twitter.com/t8FvmCOWDe
— Ryan Hana (@RyanHanaWWP) October 14, 2023
But more often it’s been in other ways, such as his play in the corners or his skating stride and shot. From the first day of training camp, Larkin was wowed by the improved explosiveness of Raymond’s first three skating strides — which was an important detail. The added muscle was Raymond’s goal, but all along he knew it couldn’t come at the cost of speed and agility.
“I can say honestly, if he came over with the weight gained, and was as fast as last year, we would have been OK with that,” Larsson said. “But he (met) the weight goal, and he’s never been faster.”
Lalonde lauded the strength progress, too, citing the team’s Oct. 30 third-period comeback win over the New York Islanders, in which Raymond “was the one that won just a couple more battles in the ‘O’ zone that kept plays alive” and ultimately was rewarded with the overtime winner.
That ability to win possessions on the forecheck has opened up more possibilities for his line, which includes the team’s two most proven goal scorers, Larkin and Alex DeBrincat.
“I notice that he’s on pucks,” Larkin said. “I think more consistently seeing him going in the corner first, and then trying to figure out where I have to go to read off of him, which is a nice thing to see someone else flying in there to win the puck battle.”
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And of course, some of that is about more than strength.
“I think people are just concentrating about his weight and how much muscle he put on,” teammate Moritz Seider said, “but I think he’s just (become) a better hockey player, and that’s what counts in the end. I mean, he could have lost weight and probably be the best at his age he could be right now. No matter how he put in the work, it’s just really fun to see how he (exceeded) probably his own expectations for the summer, and comes in as a better hockey player, leads by example, and that’s obviously what we expect from everybody in this locker room.”
Raymond added: “I feel like I know what I need to do to be successful on a daily basis. I think that comes from experience, experience of two years, and I’m feeling really comfortable in my game. I think it’s a lot of different parts, and every year has been different for me so far. Last year was difficult at times, trying to find it from first (year to) second. This year I just felt like I took a step, and feel comfortable with where I am.”
And now he gets to put that comfort, and all of his progress, on display in a marquee moment of the NHL calendar.
Larsson isn’t planning to attend the Red Wings’ two games in Stockholm, with a trip already booked to visit Los Angeles and skate with the Kings.
The products of his work with Raymond, though, will take center stage.
(Top photo: Bruce Bennett / Getty Images)
