Then IK had better have an outstanding goaltender lined up.
It is hard not to think that after Tex Williamsson’s interview with Barometern-OT. He says he received a contract proposal from Oskarshamn and expected to sign on Monday. Then the club called and withdrew the offer. According to Tex, he was given no proper explanation.
That is Tex’s account. The article does not include IK’s account of the negotiations, and we have yet to see the club’s explanation. We do not know the proposed terms either. That has to be part of any assessment of what happened.
But based on what Tex describes, this is extraordinarily strange.
Tex was already one of our options
In our look at the market on 20 October, we identified Tex as a natural name to explore. At that point, the first unanswered question was whether he wanted to play again at all.
Now we have a much clearer answer from him. In Barometern-OT, Tex says he was keen to join IK, knew many of the players and staff, had sorted out the practical arrangements at home and had started training with Alvesta.
The desire was there, then, according to Tex himself.
Before the MoDo game on 31 October, we explicitly said we wanted Tex Williamsson or a goaltender of comparable quality. We also highlighted his injury history and the questions over his match fitness. Our suggestion that he could be a relatively inexpensive option was an assessment. Today’s interview does not tell us what he would have cost.
Our argument was that IK knows him and is better placed to assess what he could bring than it would be with a less familiar goaltender. There is value in that knowledge. It does not make signing him risk-free, but it makes Tex a reasonable option to take seriously.
Arsi has already set the standard
In our own interview on 27 October, we asked Arsi Piispanen what would determine whether IK brought in another goaltender. Part of his answer was:
“if we do something, it has to make us better.”
He also stressed that finances matter. That is a reasonable requirement for any signing.
That answer was given on 27 October, before today’s report. It is therefore not a response to these latest claims. But it gives us a clear starting point for our question: what changed between IK’s proposal and the decision to withdraw it?
A club must be able to walk away from negotiations when the overall deal does not work. At the same time, the reversal is hard to understand if it first saw enough reason to make a proposal and then, according to Tex, withdrew it without a proper explanation.
Vuorio still deserves his praise
None of this changes what we wrote after the win against MoDo. Emil Vuorio played very well and deserved the praise.
We should be able to appreciate a performance like that while still asking for a goaltending arrangement that can work over time. A good response on the ice is welcome. It does not automatically answer every question about competition, sharing the workload and consistency.
If IK has a better option it can now bring in, of course we want to see it. That could make the decision to move on from Tex understandable.
But no such solution has been confirmed in the material we have been able to check. And IK backing away from Tex is not, in itself, evidence that another goaltender is on the way.
That is where we stand: Tex has given his account. We have yet to hear IK’s explanation. Our hope is that the club has something special lined up.
Otherwise, this is very hard to understand.