Being a high first round draft pick gives a player some rope during his development, but it guarantees him nothing in the long run. Some guys make it almost immediately, others wash out completely. And still others embark on a long and winding road to find their niche.

Victor Soderstrom, now in his first opportunity with the injury-riddled Bruins’ defense corps, hopes he is in this third category.

The 24-year-old Swede was taken 11th overall in the 2019 by the Arizona Coyotes, before the likes of Matt Boldy, Spencer Knight and Cole Caufield. But from 2020 through 2024, he yo-yoed between Arizona and the ‘Yotes AHL facility in Tucson, seeing 53 NHL games and 170 in the minors.

After the ‘23-24, he decided to head home and eventually signed with his former club, Brynas.

The reason for going home?

“I think just finding the joy back in hockey,” said Soderstrom, who is with Boston on an emergency basis precipitated by Michael Callahan’s injury. “I think I lost that spark a little bit in Arizona, especially last year. I didn’t have any plans going back home over that summer but then as the season got closer, I played with that thought a little bit and just ended up signing there a week before the season started. It was good for me. I got back to my game a lot more to the way I want to play. Now afterwards, I don’t regret anything. I think that was a good decision for me.”

Indeed it was. With Brynas, he had 9-28-37 totals and was plus-28 in 49 games. Soderstrom won Borje Salming Award for the best defenseman in the Swedish Hockey League. That caught the B’s eye and they made a deal with the Blackhawks, who had acquired Soderstrom’s rights at last season’s trade deadline, and sent Ryan Mast and a 2025 seventh round pick to Chicago.

Soderstrom, whose right shot makes him a valuable commodity, said he took the job with Brynas with the goal of returning to the NHL some day. But he did not have a good training camp, he readily admits, partly due to the re-acclimation to the smaller North American rinks.

“Obviously, I’ve been over here before but going back and playing on an Olympic-size rink and then coming back here, it was a little bit of a transition, so I think I’ve found my way back there now,” said Soderstrom, the 10th defenseman who has suited up for the B’s this year.

His game has come around since then. He had 1-8-9 totals in 18 games with Providence. His first game with the B’s was a relative success. He finished plus-2 in 13:40 of icetime playing on a third pairing with Mason Lohrei.

“I think it was good for me coming down there to Providence. Coaches have been great down there helping me out and finding my way back to where I want to be. I still think I can be a lot better, but I think it was a decent first game,” said Soderstrom.

Coach Marco Sturm has seen some growth from training camp to now.

“First of all, he came back from Europe to here and he had to get used to the rink, the size, everything, the style of play. I think that is part of it, too. Just getting more used to it, getting more comfortable. I think that’s what he did more in the minors (in Providence). The first period, you could tell he was a little nervous and it was a different speed in the minors. But after that I thought he was fine,” said Sturm.

Lohrei picked up a couple of assists in that game – Soderstrom was originally given one on Viktor Arvidsson’s goal but then it was taken away – and said he found a quick comfort level with the Swede, despite three giveaways himself.

“He’s smart and we talk a lot and the way he moves the puck, he’s got an offensive ability, too, so it’s fun to work with him in that area, so I think with both of us it starts with being simple in our own end and moving pucks and trying to get up ice,” said Lohrei prior to the B’s tilt against the New Jersey Devils on Saturday….

The message from management on down at the start of the season was that the team may have trouble scoring goals but that it would be much harder to play against. While the second part was correct – even though they’d surely like to get their goals against down from the 3.21 average they had going into Saturday – they’ve managed to score at higher rate than anticipated. Going into Saturday, they were in the top half of the league (13th) with goals per game average at 3.10.

“I think at 5-on-5, we work extremely hard, we grind teams down, we’re very direct. And I think guys are getting rewarded from that,” said Sturm. “Our power play’s been excellent. They give us not just goals but good momentum for the next line coming up. In games, every time we’ve needed them, they’ve stepped up.”…

David Pastrnak continued to skate on his own on Saturday morning. Sturm did not yet know if he would travel with the team on the three-game excursion (St. Louis, Winnipeg, Minnesota). While the injury remains unspecified, Sturm said it has nothing to do with his injury that kept him out of action at the start of training camp.