{"id":336259,"date":"2025-10-27T14:59:10","date_gmt":"2025-10-27T14:59:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/336259\/"},"modified":"2025-10-27T14:59:10","modified_gmt":"2025-10-27T14:59:10","slug":"pontus-johansson-drawing-nhl-interest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/336259\/","title":{"rendered":"Pontus Johansson Drawing NHL Interest"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The highest-scoring under-25 defenseman in the SHL is already drawing NHL interest early into the 2025-26 campaign. <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/hockeysverige.se\/shl\/nhl-intresse-for-pontus-johansson-skelleftea\/\" rel=\"noopener\">According to a new report from Rasmus K\u00e5gstrom in Sweden<\/a>, blueliner <strong><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.eliteprospects.com\/player\/246029\/pontus-johansson\" rel=\"noopener\">Pontus Johansson<\/a><\/strong> is generating NHL interest from multiple NHL clubs, per his agent, Martin Nilsson.<\/p>\n<p>Despite indicating that multiple NHL teams had already reached out regarding Johansson\u2019s future availability, Nilsson wouldn\u2019t offer any specific names. Still, there\u2019s no questioning he\u2019s off to a tremendous start, scoring four goals and 12 points through his first 15 games for Skellefte\u00e5 AIK.<\/p>\n<p>However, it\u2019s important to contextualize Johansson\u2019s sudden breakout. If he continues his scoring pace and doesn\u2019t miss a game this season, he\u2019ll finish with 14 goals and 42 points in 52 games, which would nearly double his career output across five years already. He has already surpassed his performance from last year, when he scored three goals and accumulated 11 points in 51 games.<\/p>\n<p>Given that his career-high before this season barely topped double digits, and he\u2019s only two years removed from being demoted to the HockeyAllsvenskan during his time with Fr\u00f6lunda HC, there should be some skepticism from NHL front offices on the legitimacy of Johansson\u2019s current breakout.<\/p>\n<p>Nonetheless, every team could benefit from a smooth-skating, puck-moving defenseman on its blue line. This means the same NHL teams that are currently interested will likely follow Johansson throughout the entire 2025-26 season. Should he maintain his output throughout the rest of the season, it wouldn\u2019t be surprising to see a club sign him relatively quickly at the conclusion of the SHL season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The highest-scoring under-25 defenseman in the SHL is already drawing NHL interest early into the 2025-26 campaign. According&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":336260,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[42],"tags":[293,166394,80192,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-336259","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-nhl","9":"tag-pontus-johansson","10":"tag-shl","11":"tag-sports","12":"tag-united-states","13":"tag-unitedstates","14":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115446727565278475","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/336259","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=336259"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/336259\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/336260"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=336259"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=336259"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=336259"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}