At the 2025 IIHF Men’s World Championship in Stockholm, Sweden, Mika Zibanejad has been himself both on and off the ice.
Zibanejad continues to be one of Team Sweden’s most notable players through the tournament thus far as he has four goals in six games, but there’s more to it than just that.
You can sense a feeling of calmness from Zibanejad and that’s something we didn’t see during the New York Rangers’ season.
“He takes on that leadership role in the locker room,” Rasmus Andersson said of Zibanejad at the World Championship. “For him too, I think he can relax a little bit. Obviously there’s a lot of pressure playing for the Rangers. He’s been really himself here and he takes a big leadership role on the ice and people follow him.”
This comes after Zibanejad admitted that he dealt with some confidence issues and was not himself from a mental standpoint through a difficult year for both him and the Rangers.
“I feel like mentally what I went through the first few months was probably the toughest I’ve ever been through in my career in a different way… “There was more to it than that,” Zibanejad said about whether his poor mental state stemmed from confidence. “Obviously, the confidence takes a turn. I think if you follow me and see how I play, you can tell what makes me good and when I play free, but I feel like I didn’t do that the first three months.”
Zibanejad has been known in New York to be extremely intellectual when it comes to the game of hockey, and that same sentiment is spreading to his Swedish teammates and coaching staff.
It’s not only the manner in which he plays the game, but the way he’s able to analyze hockey is simply something to marvel at.
“I think Mika is just a smart, reasonable person,” Sweden head coach Sam Hallam said. “He has a good understanding of your dynamics, personal performances, and he’s a good person to have in our group.”
