Five games in, it is easy to stare at the scoring table. Joel Svensson and Filiph Engsund have nine points each. Calle Karlsson has eight. Axel Elofsson has six. Manuel Ågren is injured.
But the numbers are only the beginning of the story.
What matters is where so much of IK’s offensive energy is coming from. Joel, Filiph and Calle are products of Oskarshamn. Manuel is one of the clearest carriers of that local identity. Around them, young players keep pushing upward.
This is not a team to look at and say: let us wait and see.
It is a team to help while the window is open.
Filiph deserves more credit
Filiph Engsund helped take IK to the SHL. He has stayed on the club’s side through good years and bad, and he now appears to have found another level alongside the young, local core.
We have long considered him underrated, even in Oskarshamn.
The footballer Teddy Lucic is a useful comparison – not because they are similar athletes, but because of the ability to adapt to the level around them. Filiph does not need to dominate the puck or carry superstar status. He is intelligent enough to play with skilled players. Raise the demands and quality around him and his own value rises with them.
For GLID INTE, he is also the homegrown player with the strongest case to become a future jersey-in-the-rafters candidate after Jonas Engström eventually receives that honour.
Joel and Calle change the calculation
Joel is not merely a hot HockeyAllsvenskan player. The Chicago Blackhawks selected him 138th overall in the 2024 NHL Draft. His development therefore attracts interest far beyond Oskarshamn.
Calle has already taken the opposite route across the Atlantic. With the Rochester Jr. Americans in the NAHL in 2024/25, he produced 73 points in 59 regular-season games and another 14 in 12 playoff games.
Now both are producing at home.
Our assessment is that Joel and Calle have the ability to play in the SHL or higher after this season. That is analysis, not a prediction that they will leave. But IK has to build its strategy around the reality that very good young players create options for themselves.
The strongest argument for keeping them is not asking them to wait for IK.
It is IK itself refusing to wait.
Two more Manuel-types
Manuel Ågren shows what is missing when he is not available. This is not only about points.
It is local identity combined with experience, standards and the willingness to lead every practice and every shift even when you already have the résumé and status of a star.
So when we say IK needs quality depth, what we really mean is roughly two more Manuel-types.
Not two copies of Manuel. They do not have to come from Oskarshamn. They do not have to win the internal scoring race or pile up power-play points.
They need strong résumés and still be willing to lead from the front. They need to understand what is required away against Leksand, MoDo and AIK. They need to challenge the young stars – and be good and humble enough to be challenged by them.
IK has speed. IK has skill. IK has points.
What it still needs is more dominance, responsibility and the ability to establish five-on-five play when the opposition gets better.
The cost cannot be the entire calculation
Two players like that cost money. Obviously.
But the calculation cannot stop at salary.
IK has to think in net terms: attendance, sponsor interest, sporting upside and the value of maximising an unusually interesting young and local core while it is actually here.
The Östersund game showed the other side. Only 2,203 tickets were sold on a Friday night, and visibly fewer people were actually in the building. A team perceived as a safe sixth-to-tenth-place side creates one kind of economy. A team that makes Oskarshamn believe something bigger might happen creates another.
There is growing belief around this team right now.
That can be used.
IK does not necessarily have to fund every reinforcement directly from existing equity. Sponsors and supporters can potentially be mobilised around a concrete sporting push. But the push has to be concrete.
Arsi Piispanen and the club leadership cannot simply wait for somebody else to create the opportunity. Recruitment and financing need to move in parallel. Identify the right players. Be prepared to negotiate. Then show sponsors and supporters what the club is actually trying to build and give them a chance to participate.
That does not mean signing financially irresponsible contracts.
It means recognising that speed has value too.
The team has given the club an opportunity
This team is not finished. The goaltenders still need to develop if the final ambition becomes promotion to the SHL. Injuries have shown how thin the roster remains. And five games decide nothing.
That is exactly why this moment is interesting.
IK has young players pushing from below. Homegrown players producing. Manuel setting the standard when healthy. Filiph connecting generations. And a team that has already shown it can match Södertälje despite an injury list that should have broken it.
Now the club needs to add what is missing.
Two players who lead despite their résumés. Players who make the youngsters better. Players who allow IK to have three leading units rather than one line carrying everything.
There are no guarantees. Not that Joel and Calle stay. Not that IK earns promotion.
But Oskarshamn has waited a long time for new heroes.
Some of them are beginning to stand right in front of us.
The team has given the club an opportunity.
Now it is the club’s turn to give the team the same thing back.