Defenseman Tomas Jonsson is one of Sweden's "Great Three" who, along with forwards Mats Naslund and Hakan Loob, has won the national championship, the World Championship, Olympic gold and the Stanley Cup. The three played together on Sweden's national Tre Kronor and sometimes against each other in the NHL.
A skillful and experienced defenseman, Jonsson was distinguished by the brilliant skating technique and speed that enabled him to assist his teammates in scoring goals. Jonsson was born April 12, 1960, and began his career with the provincial Falun IK. At the age of 17, he moved to Ornskoldsvik to join MoDo, which was then supervised by Jonsson's favorite coach, Tommy Sandlin. While playing with MoDo, Jonsson won his first national championship gold medal and was drafted by the NHL's New York Islanders.
In 1981 the ambitious Jonsson left Sweden for the NHL, where he spent eight seasons playing for the Islanders and the Edmonton Oilers in a total of 632 games, scoring 96 goals. The Islanders won the Stanley Cup twice with Jonsson on the team.
During the period of the Islanders' supremacy in the late 1970s and early 1980s, Jonsson's teammates were his two countrymen Stefan Persson and Anders Kallur. Persson set a record among Swedish NHL players by winning the Stanley Cup four times while playing for the Islanders.
Tomas Jonsson returned to Sweden and continued playing for Leksand and the national team, adding to his many honors the "200" title, which is awarded to anyone who has played at least 200 games for Tre Kronor. And Jonsson might have done even better had his involvement in the NHL playoff series not kept him from playing for Sweden's national team.
Jonsson holds 110th place on Sweden's "Great Men" list. The 1998-99 season was the last he played for Leksand, where he remains as coach.
