Patrick Williams delivers the FloHockey AHL Power Rankings each week throughout the regular season.

Put Carl Lindbom in net for the Henderson Silver Knights, and this team can scare – and more – the Western Conference’s top powers. 

Lindbom, a 22-year-old in his second season with the Silver Knights, might just be the AHL’s top unheralded prospect. Taken by the Vegas Golden Knights in the seventh round of the 2021 NHL Draft, Lindbom is rapidly becoming someone who could challenge for NHL work in the near future.

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A product of the Djurgårdens program in Stockholm, Lindbom came up through that system. It was just after becoming a seventh-round pick, that he really started to take off in the 2021-22 season. He got his first SHL appearance with Djurgårdens and also was selected to represent Sweden at the IIHF World Junior Championship. A season later, with Djurgårdens going to the second-tier AllSvenskan circuit, he got 36 appearances and a repeat WJC stint. 

Loaned out to SHL club Färjestad for 2023-24, he more than handled that assignment with a 17-7-0 | 2.11 | .911 performance. Before that season, the Golden Knights had already signed him to a three-year entry-level deal in May 2023. They opted to have him come to North America before last season to develop further with Henderson.

And he has.

He got 36 games last season with a struggling Silver Knights club, and it meant a lot of work. He led all AHL rookie netminders by facing 1,061 shots, and he did it well. His .912 save percentage placed him second among AHL rookies to Nikke Kokko of the Coachella Valley Firebirds.

His absence was felt by the Silver Knights this season when was recalled to the NHL club. After an Oct. 17 game with Henderson, he did not return to the team’s crease until Dec. 5. He has made his first eight NHL appearances and had another month-long gap in January and February, and the Silver Knights won just two of eight games (2-3-3-0) without him. Selected to represent the team at the AHL All-Star Classic last month, he ended up having to pull out.

But he returned to the Henderson net Feb. 14 at San Jose and quickly has steadied the team. He can handle a hefty workload and has taken five of seven starts since then. He led the team to a 6-2 road win against the Firebirds last Wednesday and then stopped 37 of 39 shots two nights later against the powerful Colorado Eagles back on home ice.

The demands do not figure to get any lighter for Lindbom at this point. The Silver Knights have a home rematch with Coachella Valley on Wednesday night. Then they face the Pacific Division-leading Ontario Reign in a home-and-home series that starts Friday on the road. Next week will start a trip that features six games in a 10-day span taking them to Tucson, Abbotsford, and Calgary.

They’ve had to go without him at different stretches this season, and they have felt the pain of his absence. With Carter Hart still out for the Golden Knights, Lindbom is just a Vegas injury away from another recall.

If he stays put, though, Henderson could be a threat.

1) Grand Rapids Griffins (--)
Fittingly enough, the powerhouse Griffins locked up the first Calder Cup Playoff berth last week. Playing .811 hockey with nearly three-quarters of their season done, they remain positioned to challenge the 1992-93 Binghamton Rangers’ league-record .775 point percentage. They will get a good test this Friday and Saturday with a pair of games at Cleveland.

2) Providence Bruins (--)
That brief “slump” that hit the P-Bruins in February clearly reset them. They went to Lehigh Valley and got a 6-4 win before sweeping the Bridgeport Islanders in a two-game home set. For as remarkable as the Griffins’ season has been so far, the P-Bruins are just three points behind Grand Rapids for the AHL lead. It’s quite conceivable that not one, but two, teams this season could challenge that Binghamton record.

3) Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins (--)
Taking two weekend wins at Cleveland, the Penguins have themselves a 4-0-2-0 streak that has them challenging Providence for the Eastern Conference lead. They get a road rematch this Friday with the Syracuse Crunch, a team that came to Wilkes-Barre/Scranton on Feb. 14 and dealt them a 5-0 loss. Joel Blomqvist and Sergei Murashov remain aces in net.

4) Ontario Reign (+2)
It was a very light week for the Reign, who had just one game. They took that one, a 4-2 win on home ice against the Bakersfield Condors. Defenseman Angus Booth along with forwards Kenny Connors and winger Jared Wright all got a chance to open this week by making their NHL debuts for the Los Angeles Kings. Booth even picked up his first NHL goal in that same game. With the Kings’ head-coaching change and pressure around the NHL club, the Reign are going about their own business.

5) Laval Rocket (-1)
Jacob Fowler remained out, pressing Kaapo Kähkönen into even more work last week. They hammered the Rochester Americans, 9-3, last Friday. Kähkönen finally got a break the next night at Syracuse, where Hunter Jones gave up six goals on 13 shots in a loss to the Crunch.

6) Colorado Eagles (-1)
Colorado surrendered five goals on Henderson’s 10 power-play chances in the teams’ two-game weekend set. They still managed to come away with a shootout win to finish out the weekend. Their eight-game road trip continues Friday and Saturday at Abbotsford.

7) Chicago Wolves (+2)
Cayden Primeau largely has been solid for the Wolves in net while Amir Miftakhov has had his struggles. Last week the Wolves allowed 12 goals in three games despite allowing just a combined 52 shots. They need much better goaltending than that. This is a team that finds itself in an odd space, standings-wise. First place in the Central Division is long gone, but the second-place Wolves have a sizable lead on the rest of their divisional neighbors. Barring a surge by one of those teams or the Wolves falling apart, there isn’t much movement possible for Chicago.

8) Bakersfield Condors (-1)
The Condors are dealing with the effects of several moves by the Edmonton Oilers. Defenseman Alec Regula is back. He is joined by forward Andrew Mangiapane, who cleared waivers. Josh Samanski went to Edmonton. Calvin Pickard joined the Condors last month. A lot is happening.

9) San Jose Barracuda (+1)
Laurent Brossoit has given the Barracuda .906 goaltending so far, which is solid enough but probably not sufficient for them to make a real run at the Pacific Division’s top powers come the postseason unless the NHL veteran can find a higher level. Gabriel Carriere was shipped out to their ECHL affiliate, the Wichita Thunder. But Carriere’s replacement, recall Matt Davis, allowed five goals in last Sunday’s loss to the  Tucson Roadrunners. First in the AHL in scoring, the Barracuda are able to outgun teams some nights, but they have to tighten up without the puck.

10) Charlotte Checkers (-2)
On and on this 10-game road trip goes. It will wrap up with two games at Lehigh Valley this weekend, but the wear-and-tear has shown. Still, clearing out such a large chunk of the road schedule means that the Checkers could be in good shape as March and April progress. When they go home, they have a six-game homestand against the Bridgeport Islanders, Hartford Wolf Pack, and Lehigh Valley.

11) Syracuse Crunch (+1)
After back-to-back home wins, the Crunch can cut further into Laval’s North Division lead with a successful visit to Place Bell on Wednesday. Then it’s the Penguins back in Syracuse on Friday. What they really need to do, thought, is to avoid a letdown in Sunday afternoon’s visit to Utica. They have lost their last three road match-ups with the last-place Comets.

12) Cleveland Monsters (-1)
With wins in four of their past five games, the Monsters again look like a team that is for real. How real? A good barometer comes this weekend with the Griffins in town for two. 

13) Toronto Marlies (-3)
Amid all of the turmoil around the parent Toronto Maple Leafs going into the NHL trade deadline on Friday, the Marlies have quietly handled their business. Facing two top teams, Laval and Chicago, the Marlies came away with a pair of wins and a shootout point. How significant will the changes to the parent team’s roster be this week? What, if any, impact might those have on the Marlies as they face a March schedule with 13 games in 31 nights? 

14) Coachella Valley Firebirds (-1)
Although Victor Östman had some bright spots with Nikke Kokko out, it may need to be Kokko’s net down the stretch. Kokko’s 33-save night helped the Firebirds to grind out a shootout win against Bakersfield last Saturday. After the quick trip to Henderson, they get the Calgary Wranglers in Friday and Saturday.

15) Texas Stars (+1)
Last weekend against the San Diego Gulls had the Stars getting a look at what they will a lot of in March and April – an opponent much like them that is fighting for a playoff spot. Aside from the Wolves, a team that they will see six times, the Stars will be exclusively facing the Pacific Division in the next month.

16) Henderson Silver Knights (+3)

The Rest
17) San Diego Gulls (--)
18) Rochester Americans (-3)
19) Manitoba Moose (-1)
20) Hershey Bears (+1)
21) Tucson Roadrunners (-1)
22) Lehigh Valley Phantoms (+2)
23) Bridgeport Islanders (--)
24) Belleville Senators (-2)
25) Springfield Thunderbirds (+1)
26) Milwaukee Admirals (-1)
27) Utica Comets (+2)
28) Calgary Wranglers (-1)
29) Abbotsford Canucks (+1)
30) Rockford IceHogs (-2)
31) Iowa Wild (--)
32) Hartford Wolf Pack (--)

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