You watch Carl Soderberg blast into the open ice with the puck and you wonder what it would be like to slap a pair of cleats on his feet, a different helmet on his head and throw him the old pigskin down the middle.

He carries the puck up the ice with a full head of steam and defenders bounce off him like rubber. Sometimes you have to rub your eyes to make sure you’re not seeing Rob Gronkowski on skates. He doesn’t need to use a stiff arm because his body is just that repellent.

A year ago he stopped repelling the Bruins’ offers to leave his native Sweden. Now the 28-year-old center has been one of the Bruins’ best players in their first-round series against the Detroit Red Wings and he’s the envy of some around the league who wish they could put such an all-around talent in the middle of their third lines.

You don’t have to tell coach Claude Julien how lucky the Bruins are.

“He is an unbelievable player and we are fortunate to have him. You know, we have a guy like him and Loui (Eriksson) on your third line. I guess, as a team, you find yourself as a pretty spoiled team because there are not too many teams who can have that kind of quality on their third line,” Julien said yesterday.

The Bruins will try to close out the Red Wings today at the Garden in Game 5 with a 3-1 series lead already in hand. Amazingly Soderberg only has one assist to show for his efforts in the four games. Part of his lack of production can be attributed to Eriksson’s inability to finish Soderberg set-ups in the Bruins’ 3-2 overtime win in Game 4.

It’s also become difficult to quantify what Soderberg is providing the Bruins. There is no stat for the races he’s won to the puck, the biggest of which came just before he set up Milan Lucic’s game-tying goal in Game 4. The number of players he’s warded off the puck can’t be counted without reviewing game video. And then there’s the times he’s been in the neutral-zone passing lanes or as the third man high in the offensive end preventing the Red Wings from really getting their speed going toward the Bruins’ end.

Soderberg, who finished the regular season with 16-32-48 totals, wasn’t able to show off any of his talents during his eight-game stint with the B’s last season or even in training camp this year. He was clearly not in game shape last spring and an injury slowed his immersion into the Bruins’ system in 2013-14.

Now he’s every bit the two-way center Boston demands and a player Julien can allow to stay on in the action even when the Wings have star center Pavel Datsyuk’s line on the ice. Julien has seen Soderberg assimilate over time.

“I think it was more about understanding what we needed him to do as a centerman,” Julien said. “I guess every team you play for, every league you play in, have different systems and views on how to do things. For him, it was just about adjusting. Until it becomes second nature, you’re always thinking out there and when you’re thinking, you’re slowing yourself down. I think right now he’s just getting more comfortable.”