First, a rookie year re-cap: Two seasons ago, Alfredsson entered the Ottawa Senators� training camp as a fifth-round draft pick who�d played his whole life in Europe.

Then 22, he was a nearly-anonymous middle-round hopeful looking to crack the lineup of a low-end team.

He did that. And he made the All Star team and-skated aside, Ed Jovanovski and Eric Daze � who won the Calder Memorial Trophy as the NHL�s Rookie of the Year. (Twenty-six goals and 35 assists will do that for a new guy.)

Not bad for a guy who was drafted at the late age of 21. Not necessarily surprising, either: Alfredsson�s hardly been an overachieving prodigy, which brings us back to the defenseman thing.

Defense to forward

Flash back to Alfredsson�s formative years in Sweden.

�I always wanted to shoot and score,� Alfredsson says. �I always wanted to have the puck. A lot of guys told me they should put another puck on the ice when I was out there because I�d hold onto the puck too much.�

From age 5, when his dad was his coach, Alfredsson was a defenseman � in theory. His zone may have been on the blue line, but his instinct was elsewhere. He was a decent player,skilled, not sloppybut certainly not exceptional.

In any case, when you have a defenseman bursting for breakaways, a coach will undoubtedly notice.

�The coach I had when I was 14 said, �You might as well play forward, because you�re like a fourth forward anyway!�� Alfredsson recalls. �When I was playing defense, he thought I was playing offensively. I started playing center and that turned my game around, I think.�

Certainly, the positional swap flipped a switch in Alfredsson�s career. At an age when most kids have their focus set on the draft, he was only beginning to bud. He�d been a defenseman partly because as a little kid, he wasn�t too fast. That changed, but it didn�t take magic.

Just a new role.

�The first year I started to play center, I got faster,� says Alfredsson, who eventually switched to right wing. �As a defenseman, you don�t get to skate up a lot like a forward does. It was a turnaround. I had a lot of fun that year, and for the next three or four years to come. That�s when things started. I got a lot of confidence going into junior, and things went on from there.

Finally, Alfredsson was able to move forward on face-offs and he was happy. junior hockey also reminded him of a necessary part of playing forward � passing the puck.

�When I came up to play junior hockey, I had to learn to move the puck because the game is faster, Alfredsson says. �But I always wanted the puck and I always wanted to score.

Mastering the fundamentals

For a guy like Alfredsson, challenging the goalie is gut instinct. To do that well, though, you need to learn the basics, which is what Alfredsson suggests for young players.

�I remember we weren�t allowed to shoot slapshots before we could shoot wrist shots,� he says. �We�d just go out there and try and have fun. We did a lot of passing drills. I think a lot of teams for smaller kids are not focusing on doing breakouts and stuff. They just want to let the kids have fun and develop their skills, first of all.�

And if it takes a little longer for those skills to blossom, hey, no problem, Alfredsson�s proof that a guy can still shoot ahead.

After junior hockey, he played three years in the Swedish Elite League before leaving his friends, family and country for North America. With Ottawa, Alfredsson led both the Senators and all NHL rookies in scoring (26-35-61).

After playing in the World Cup last summer, his second NHL campaign was even better. Nearing season�s end, Alfredsson, now 24, was poised to break the 70-point mark.

�After playing the World Cup I was fired up and got off to a pretty good start and it really helped me with my confidence,� he says. �A lot of people were talking about the sophomore jinx and stuff, so it was pretty good to get off to a good start. Things just kind of rolled on. I�ve tried to do the same things I do all the time � work hard and fire the puck when I get the chance.�

It�s a chance Alfredsson has long longed to have.

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