Man of the Week: Adam Reideborn

KHL.ru’s weekly column ‘Man of the Week’ goes on with Adam Reideborn. The Swedish netminder has recently been awarded goalie of the week honors.

CSKA had a slow start – and so had Adam Reideborn – but they recovered fast, and the Muscovites are now enjoying their second place in the West, trailing only the unreachable SKA. A lot of the merit for the achievements is to be given the team’s system and tight defense, with the goalie being a very important part. Last year, the Swedish puckstopper was second in the teams’ depth chart behind Ivan Fedotov, but now he finally became the CSKA’s starter, appearing in 17 games from 23 and collecting 13 wins.

Thanks to his strong game, he was also awarded goalie of the week honors, for the second time in his career, in week eight – the Swedish netminder faced 54 shots, or 27 per night, posting a saves percentage of 96.30% and a goals-against average of 1.00. He was awarded goalie of the week honors for the first time in the 2020-2021 eighteenth week.

Early years

Adam Reideborn was born on Jan 18, 1992, in Stockholm. He started playing hockey with AIK. Back in 2013-2014, however, he emerged as the Allsvenskan’s top goalie and helped Djurgarden return to the SHL, but he didn’t join his former team as he moved to MODO instead. There, he had his debut in the top-flight league, the SHL, with 25 games in his debut season. He will play another 32 the next season, but both times MODO was fair to be a top team. In 2015-2016, in spite of another great season by Reideborn, MODO relegated back to the Allsvenskan, yet the goalie decided to stay in his native Sweden and signed with Djurgarden again.

Back in the Swedish capital, Reideborn continued progressing as he soon became a top goalie in the ìSHL. He consistently posted sub-two goals-against averages in his three seasons with Djurgarden and was awarded as the league’s top goalie in the 2018-2019 campaign. It was clear that he outgrew the SHL, and in the 2019 offseason, he moved abroad for the first time in his career, inking a one-year deal with Ak Bars Kazan of the KHL.

Move to the KHL

In Kazan, Reideborn posted a saves percentage of 91.3 and a goals-against average of 2.11 in his debut season, improving those numbers to 93.1 and 1.82, respectively, in the next season. In the playoffs, Kazan had two excellent options between the piping with the Swedish netminder and Timur Bilyalov, but they lost to Avangard in a hard-to-forget game seven of the Eastern Conference finals.

After his second year in Tatarstan, Reideborn was finally called to guard Team Sweden’s crease at the IIHF World Men’s in Latvia for the first time in his career. Despite the goalie’s outstanding stats (94.1% and 1.40), team Sweden failed to reach the playoffs – a rare disappointment for the Swedish. The next day, the goalie inked a deal with CSKA after two excellent seasons with Ak Bars Kazan. Across two campaigns in Tatarstan, the netminder had 70 games, posting a 92.3 saves percentage and a goals-against average of 1.96.

CSKA career

However, Reideborn most likely moved to Moscow also to have a chance to reach new heights in his career and become the next Swedish goalie to lift a Gagarin Cup after former CSKA’s netminder Lars Johansson, who won the KHL’s most-coveted trophy in 2019.

In his first year with CSKA, Reideborn was outplayed by Ivan Fedotov, whose fantastic play limited him to just 22 games and a place in Team Sweden’s roster for the Olympic Games as the team’s third-string goalie. However, with Fedotov leaving the team, the music has changed as Reideborn is currently CSKA’s starting netminder, and the team is now riding on the West’s second place.