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Kalle Larsson ’07 fits the bill when there’s talk of following your passion.

The former �������ý��Ƶ hockey player is a self-described “hockey obsessive”—he was traveling the Midwest to watch games, taking in practices, and talking hockey with whomever would listen while working for a management consulting company in Chicago in the years following his 2007 graduation. He didn’t plan for a career in the game, until a coach at his alma mater suggested he interview for an open assistant coaching position. That four-year coaching gig at �������ý��Ƶ set Larsson on a career path that has led him to the highest levels of professional hockey.

In May, after 10 years with the Dubuque Fighting Saints of the United States Hockey League—first as director of player personnel, then as general manager and president of hockey operations—Larsson was named senior director of player development for the Edmonton Oilers, one of the most storied franchises in the National Hockey League.

“I never set out to do this job,” Larsson said by phone as he traveled to Flint, Michigan, to check in with some of the Oilers’ top draft picks. “I didn’t necessarily have a strategic plan to get to where I am right now. It was just by following the passion that I have and being obsessed with the game of hockey; I trusted that I would get to where I aspired to go, and that kind of led me here.”

He oversees and manages all areas of player development, focused on the Oilers’ draft selections and other signed prospects.

A native of Gothenburg, Sweden, Larsson majored in government and minored in history with an interdisciplinary in international studies at �������ý��Ƶ. That liberal arts education, he said, gave him perspectives in business management that have served him well.

“I’m passionate about player development, but my skill set is not necessarily getting on the ice and teaching them how to play the game,” Larsson said. “I’m good at finding the people who can and giving them the resources to do it and making sure they have the support from the organization to do their jobs well.”

Larsson talked about those management skills in October when he met virtually with �������ý��Ƶ students in Professor Karen Bussone’s Sport Management course. He was one of eight guests from the world of professional and college sports invited during Fall Term to meet with students to discuss sports-related careers.

“If you’re passionate about something, you need to start there; hold on to the sport you love, do your best, and try to outwork the others,” he said of his message to the class.

It was the connections Larsson built while at �������ý��Ƶ and then Dubuque that led to the initial interest from the Oilers. They liked his work ethic, management skills, and big-picture thinking.

“I think my skill set is managing a department,” Larsson said. “I’ve become pretty good at bringing in the right people, making sure the department is aligned, the reporting upwards and downwards works.”

As a player for �������ý��Ƶ, Larsson earned Midwest Collegiate Hockey Association Player of the Week and Rookie of the Week honors. He also was a member of the Academic All-Midwest Collegiate Hockey Association team.

Former Vikings head coach Mike Szkodzinski brought Larsson back to �������ý��Ƶ in 2010 to serve as an assistant coach. Larsson was happy with his job in Chicago; he was interacting with major clients and gaining valuable business experience. But the pull of hockey was always there.

“On my own dime, I traveled around and watched hockey," he said. "I went to watch games and practices. When �������ý��Ƶ was at tournaments, I was always there. Just on my own time. It’s what I liked to do. Then one day I got a call from the head coach at �������ý��Ƶ, and he asked if I’d be interested in coming up here and interviewing for a job to be an assistant coach. It got my foot in the door to work in hockey.”

Larsson was promoted to �������ý��Ƶ’s associate head coach in 2013. He left a year later to join the staff of the USHL's Sioux City Musketeers before eventually jumping to the front office in Dubuque.

“That’s how I got my start in hockey,” he said. “It was being out at the rinks, it was being obsessed with the game, and it was doing what I love.”

Relationship-building and a commitment to the grind, which started during his undergraduate days at �������ý��Ƶ, has led to the big opportunity Larsson now has in the NHL. He and his player development team are working to formulate and implement comprehensive individual development plans for every player in the Oilers’ organization.

Edmonton is a tradition-rich franchise that has seen a resurgence of late led by superstar Connor McDavid. The Oilers came up just short of a sixth championship when they lost to the Florida Panthers in Game 7 of the 2024 Stanley Cup Finals. The franchise’s history is dominated by some of the greatest players in league history—Wayne Gretzky, Mark Messier, and Grant Fuhr, among them.

Larsson’s job is to develop the next generation of Oilers. Much of that work goes unseen by the public, built on a foundation of teamwork, perseverance, and strategic planning.

“A lot of things I see in my current position are things that I learned at �������ý��Ƶ,” Larsson said.

“When you go to college, you are at an age where you get informed by your environment,” he said. “You go in and you think you know everything, and you realize pretty quickly that you don’t know anything. I really learned how to use my resources. I understood that if you ask the right questions, there is help you can get. When I was there, when I didn’t care about school, �������ý��Ƶ cared about school for me and got me back on the right path. I’m very grateful for that.”

Those critical-thinking skills honed as part of a liberal arts education are now front and center in his daily work with the Oilers.

“I don’t pretend to have all the answers,” Larsson said. “I am not here to be right; I’m here to try to get it right. I need help from a lot of people.”