Kronwall Out of World Cup

The National Hockey League announced today that Team Sweden has replaced injured defenseman Niklas Kronwall of the Red Wings with Hampus Lindholm of the Anaheim Ducks for the upcoming World Cup of Hockey.

The news comes as somewhat of a surprise as, while Kronwall had been recovering from a knee injury, Detroit general manager Ken Holland declared in an interview on NHL.com yesterday that, “I talked to Kronwall the other day and he feels a lot better.”

Obviously “better” is a relative term.  If I were the Swedes, I’d rather have Lindholm than Kronwall anyway, so they might be taking advantage of Kronwall’s past injury to make that switch.