Twenty-year-old Michael Brandsegg-Nygård is applying important lessons learned from his season-opening NHL experience.

Michael Brandsegg-Nygård didn’t sulk upon being assigned to the Griffins by the Detroit Red Wings on Oct. 27, which came after the 20-year-old forward had earned a spot on the NHL club’s opening night roster out of training camp and recorded one assist in nine games while donning the Winged Wheel sweater to kick off the 2025-26 season.

As a matter of fact, all Brandsegg-Nygård has been doing since then is working harder. 

“Hopefully, I’ll keep playing well and improving so I can get called back up,” Brandsegg-Nygård said. “Playing in the NHL is all you want to do as a player, but I won’t be disappointed if I’m not able to be up there right now. I’m really enjoying my time in Grand Rapids and continuing to develop myself.”

To best understand where Brandsegg-Nygård is at this stage of his professional hockey career, one must trace his still-winding development path back to its starting point, when he skated for the first time as a two-year-old in Oslo, Norway. 

“For me, I‘ve always wanted to play hockey,” said Brandsegg-Nygård, who was 5 when he joined his first hockey team. “There were no questions about that. This is the only thing I’ve really wanted to do. When I was younger, my dream was just to play in Norway for the team that my dad played for. As I got older, I knew I wanted to play in the NHL.”

After rising through the youth ranks, Brandsegg-Nygård made his professional debut as a 16-year-old with Vålerenga in the EliteHockey Ligaen and played eight games in Norway’s top professional league during the 2021-22 campaign. He also recorded 42 points (24 goals, 18 assists) in 25 games with Vålerenga’s U20 team, and 19 points (10 goals, nine assists) in seven games with the U18 club that same season. And in the campaign prior, Brandsegg-Nygård led Norway’s U18 circuit with 16 goals in just eight games. 

Following the 2021-22 season, leaving home for Sweden marked a defining step for Brandsegg-Nygård. Although being apart from his family was difficult, especially as a teenager, Brandsegg-Nygård said he knew he needed to embrace feeling uncomfortable if he wanted to keep pursuing his hockey dreams. 

“Without my family, I wouldn’t be here,” Brandsegg-Nygård said. “They’ve helped me a lot along the way. When I moved away, it was tough in the beginning, but they really helped me through it.”

Then came Brandsegg-Nygård’s debut with Mora IK in Sweden’s second-highest professional league, where he spent the next two seasons (2022-24) and collected 21 points (nine goals, 12 assists) in 52 games. He also racked up 50 points (22 goals, 28 assists) in 42 games with Mora IK’s U20 team, along with 10 points (five goals, five assists) in four games at the U18 level.

“I was kind of forced to grow up and mature when I moved to Sweden a few years ago, so that helped me a lot,” Brandsegg-Nygård said. “Even with hockey, by being more mature on the ice and playing with older guys. I was able to learn more from them, so I feel like that’s still helping me today.”

But what really makes Brandsegg-Nygård proud isn’t so much his own journey, but for how his accomplishments might inspire up-and-coming Norwegian hockey players. That was very clear in June 2024, when Brandsegg-Nygård became the first Norwegian-born skater to be selected in the first round of an NHL Entry Draft. Detroit took him at No. 15 overall. 

“I’m still really close to everyone back home,” Brandsegg-Nygård said. “It meant a lot for me to be drafted. I still follow Norway’s national team a lot. Hockey in the region is only getting better and better, so it’s really fun to see how things will keep going for Norwegian hockey.”

Brandsegg-Nygård kept going too, logging 11 points (five goals, six assists) in 42 regular-season games in 2024-25, in addition to six points (four goals, two assists) in 11 playoff contests with Skellefteå AIK in the Swedish Hockey League (SHL).

When looking back on his time in Sweden, Brandsegg-Nygård said those formative years proved to be a key step in his journey, accelerating his development and leading to his North American professional debut with the Griffins on April 19, 2025. 

“I’m still trying to pick up a lot of things,” Brandsegg-Nygård admitted. “That’s mostly because I’m a young player and have a lot to learn. That learning will come with the years, but it’s still the same game even though the rink is smaller [in North America compared to Europe]. I just try to go out there and play.”

Last spring, Brandsegg-Nygård played two AHL regular-season games before tying for the club lead with three points (two goals, one assist) in three Calder Cup Playoff contests. A small sample size, sure, but enough for the young forward to begin adjusting to the North American game. 

But making the Red Wings out of training camp was something that Brandsegg-Nygård admittingly “didn’t expect at all.”

“I was just going out there and playing as hard as I could,” Brandsegg-Nygård said. “I was trying to make the team, of course, and I really wanted to. I had a really good preseason. I just wanted to show the coaching staff and everyone else in the Red Wings organization that I really wanted to play there.”

Brandsegg-Nygård said that during his time in Detroit, he learned a lot while spending time with experienced players like captain Dylan Larkin and future Hockey Hall of Famer Patrick Kane. 

“As a young player, playing with people like Larkin and Kane, you’re really trying to look at what they’re doing,” Brandsegg-Nygård said. “You see them play hockey in games and stuff, but the real work is off the ice and in practices. I saw what they do, how they take care of their bodies and what their mindsets are. I try to learn from them. I want to do the same, but I have my own little ways of doing it too. Everything they work on has been working well for them, so I know they’re doing something right.”

What Brandsegg-Nygård picked up from the Red Wings players shifted his approach upon rejoining the Griffins. So much so that Grand Rapids head coach Dan Watson noticed right away. 

“I think he realized how hard the NHL is,” Watson said. “He prides himself on doing everything hard and strong. He’s a physical player, so his game is already in that North American style. There’s still a little bit of an adjustment going on. But for him to come down here, the work ethic he possesses before and after practice – he does so much extra work. That’s all the little things that guys who want to get to the NHL, they just do it. He does that naturally, but it’s more.”

Watson also views Brandsegg-Nygård’s brief NHL stint as the kind of experience that will only benefit him moving forward.

“There’s a hunger there, because now they know how close they are,” Watson said. “They’ve tasted it just a little bit, and now they want the whole meal because it’s life-changing for them. The way you live and the quality of life in the NHL comes with knowing how hard it is to stay there. I just think that small, little taste shows they’re so close but there’s still work to be done. 

“They’re hungry to get back here to Grand Rapids to do the work that’s necessary to get to where they obviously want to get to, which is Detroit. We understand the NHL is the best league in the world and it’s extremely hard to get there. So, when you do get back there, how hard are you going to work to stay there? Those glimpses show some promise and how close they truly are.”

Brandsegg-Nygård said that when talking to Detroit’s coaching staff in late October, Todd McLellan and his group pointed out specific areas that he should focus on as this season progresses.

“Game management and moving my feet a little bit more,” Brandsegg-Nygård said. “I want to get more used to the game and rink in North America too, so I’m just going to keep developing. I’m a young player. Playing in the NHL is hard. It’s a tough league, so you need to be good in everything.”

As of Jan. 6, Brandsegg-Nygård had 21 points on eight goals and 13 assists in 26 games with the Griffins this season. He believes his individual success goes hand in hand with the team’s success. 

“We have a really good group here,” Brandsegg-Nygård said. “When everyone is playing well, it’s easier to play well yourself. In practice, we’re competing and playing hard. You can see that happening during games too, because we’ve been pretty good in a lot of areas. The group has a lot of confidence too. We’re going into every game wanting to compete and work as hard as we can. If we’re doing that, we know we’re going to win. We’re just having fun. It’s always fun winning, that’s why you play, so we’re just trying to do that. We’re having a really good time.”

Watching how Grand Rapids’ veterans, like captain Dominik Shine and Sheldon Dries, carry themselves has prompted Brandsegg-Nygård to raise the standard he sets for himself.   

“I really look up to Shine and Dries,” Brandsegg-Nygård said. “They work hard. They always stay long out there on the ice to work on the little things. As a young player, I know I have a lot to learn. For them, even though they’re older, there’s still a lot for them to learn. And because of that, they’re working hard to try to get better. It’s never too late to get better.”

When Brandsegg-Nygård talks, it doesn’t take long to recognize that everything he’s about is driven by his love for the game.

“It’s kind of hard for me to not think about hockey,” Brandsegg-Nygård said. “That’s pretty much all that I do now. When you get back from a practice or game, you’re still thinking about hockey.” 

That bodes well not only for Brandsegg-Nygård, but the Griffins and the entire Red Wings organization.

“We’re counting on him to play big 5-on-5 minutes in a major top-six role, plus be on our top power-play unit,” Watson said. “For a young guy, that’s a lot of responsibility to shoulder. But he’s got the maturity level to do that and understand what’s expected of him. He’s done a really good job of it so far. There are still things to learn. There are still some puck and game management issues that he’s going to continue to learn, but as he progresses here throughout the season, he’s a big part of our success.”

Jonathan Mills has served as the Detroit Red Wings’ team reporter since the 2021-22 season. He’s covered a broad array of sports and events, including roles at U.S. Figure Skating and the University of Wisconsin athletics department. He earned his master’s degree in sports media from Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications after receiving his bachelor’s degree in journalism from the UW-Madison School of Journalism and Mass Communication.

Photo by Nicolas Carrillo/Griffins