By Chad Graff

St. Paul Pioneer Press

This summer, Christian Folin traveled back to Sweden to do some housecleaning.

Finally, at 23, it was time to officially move out of his childhood room. He brought old sticks, old pucks and old jerseys back to the United States with him, mementos from a long road that eventually, and improbably, led to the National Hockey League.

As Folin played in the Wild’s preseason finale Saturday — a 5-4 overtime win against the St. Louis Blues — he wasn’t sure where the mementos would end up. He has been in an intense competition for one of the final roster spots.

On Monday, he’ll likely learn whether his performance in training camp was enough to earn him a place on the team. If not, he’ll head to the Wild’s AHL affiliate in Iowa.

In the final days of camp, it appeared Folin had done enough to earn a spot in the top six, likely alongside Keith Ballard or Matt Dumba. But until word from the team, nothing is official.

“Because the decision is right around the corner, he seems to be a little more nervous and his mind is a little busy because he’s thinking about [it],” Chris Tok, his junior coach in Austin, Minn., said.

Tok might know Folin as well as anyone outside his family.

Folin calls Chris, Chris’ wife Melissa and their 11-year-old son Easton his second family.

Tok met Folin at a gas station in Fargo, N.D. Tok was coaching the new Austin Bruins of the North American Hockey League. He needed more players to fill his roster, so when the Fargo Force of the USHL had no need for Folin, Tok told them to send the defenseman to a local gas station.

Tok and the Bruins picked up Folin on their way to Bemidji, Minn., for a game.

Folin had been in America for a few months. He showed up at the gas station with his hockey bag and all of his possessions crammed into a suitcase.

“He was pretty easy to find,” Tok said with a laugh. “There weren’t too many 6-foot-3 blond guys with hockey bags standing there.”

The upstart Bruins didn’t have a housing system well established, so Folin moved in with Tok and slept in his basement. He shoveled the driveway and took out the trash. But he didn’t want to get too attached to the family at first.

“He didn’t want to be labeled as the coach’s pet,” Tok said.

Quickly, though, Folin established himself as one of the team’s best players. Still, the Division I college offers were slow to come in after Bemidji State pulled its offer.

Tok, a former Michigan Tech assistant, couldn’t figure it out. He called his coaching friends across the NCAA, begging one of them to make an offer to Folin.

“I told so many of them that if this kid can’t play Division I hockey, then I will quit coaching,” Tok said. “I will retire and go do something else because he is that good.”

Folin received two Division I offers and went to UMass Lowell in 2012.

By Folin’s sophomore season, in the spring of last season, he was the most-heralded college free agent and had drawn interest from every NHL team.

Last spring, he signed a deal with the Wild that will make him a free agent at the end of this season. But that’s a long way off. For now, Folin is focused on making the Wild’s season-opening roster.

“It’s starting to sink in that I’m actually here, and I’m really enjoying it,” Folin said. “A lot of times in the summer, it was like a little bit of a dream because you can’t really believe that you’re in the NHL. That’s something you dream of for so long that when you’re finally here, it’s like — wow.”

This season, Folin is expected to have a big impact with the Wild.

After signing him, GM Chuck Fletcher said, “He’s kind of what we need.”

At 215 pounds, Folin is the biggest defenseman on the roster. He rarely is flashy but always seems to make the right play and could spend time on the team’s second power-play unit because of his strong shot.

“We still have to work on consistency, but I also see a guy who plays the game with confidence,” Wild coach Mike Yeo said. “He’s not just trying to chip the puck off the glass and make the safe play every shift. He’s made some great plays, some great passes, and he can definitely move the puck very well. He’s a big, strong body who can defend hard, too.”

There’s a good chance that Folin and Ballard will make up the team’s third defensive pairing on opening night.

“It’s been a tough time for him, trying to figure out where he’s going to play,” Tok said. “But he knows he can’t control that, so he just shows up to the rink to take control of what he can.”

Over the weekend, Yeo indicated Folin would make the opening night roster.

“I liked his game,” Yeo said of Folin. “Both those guys (Matt Dumba and Folin) have had very strong camps. It’s hard for me to say that they’ve had a bad game, let alone a bad period.”

Friday night, Folin went back to Austin and had dinner at the Tok household with Melissa and Easton, like old times. They went to Chris’ game and watched the Bruins.

It was a chance for Folin to clear his mind of the ongoing battle in training camp. But it was also another reminder of how far he’s come since leaving Austin in 2012.

If Folin makes the Wild’s opening-night roster, he’ll get an apartment in the Twin Cities and bring some of the mementos from Sweden with him.

And he certainly won’t forget about the coach who gave him a chance after meeting at a gas station.

“When I get a place,” Folin said, “I’m going to hang my Austin jersey up on the wall.”

Christian Folin bio

Christian Folin, a former Austin Bruins defenseman, played in an NHL game with the Minnesota Wild last year.

Folin, a 23-year old, 6-3, 215-pounder from Gothenburg, Sweden, spent two seasons with the Bruins.

He first came to Minnesota at 19 to play for Fargo of the United States Hockey League. He was traded to the Bruins, a North American Hockey League club, less than two months later.

After his time with the Bruins, Folin was a standout at UMass-Lowell and played in the Frozen Four.

Folin signed a two-year, $1.38 million contract with the Wild in March.

Despite being signed on for one more year with the Wild, Folin still seeks advice from Bruins coach Chris Tok, Folin told the Herald in August.

“We talk on a regular basis and I still look up to him the same way that I did when I played here,” Folin said. “Now that I have the courage to actually talk to him. I didn’t really have that when I played for him.”

The Wild will open the regular season at home against the Colorado Avalanche Oct. 9 at 8 p.m.