{"id":578803,"date":"2026-02-10T02:23:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-10T02:23:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/578803\/"},"modified":"2026-02-10T02:23:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-10T02:23:09","slug":"victor-eklund-expected-to-play-in-north-america-next-season-pro-hockey-rumors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/578803\/","title":{"rendered":"Victor Eklund Expected To Play In North America Next Season \u2013 Pro Hockey Rumors"},"content":{"rendered":"

It has been a solid post-draft season for Islanders prospect Victor Eklund<\/a><\/strong>.\u00a0 Making the jump to the SHL level for the first time, he has put up 16 points in 34 games with Djurgardens while averaging 14:38 of playing time.<\/p>\n

However, even though he\u2019s playing a regular role at home, it appears that the Islanders have other plans for him next season.\u00a0 Stefan Rosner of The Hockey News relays (Twitter link<\/a>) that Eklund is expected to play in North America next season, either with New York or the minors where their farm team is expected to relocate from Bridgeport to Hamilton for 2026-27.<\/p>\n

The 19-year-old was the 16th overall pick back in June, the second of back-to-back selections that were acquired as part of the Noah Dobson<\/strong><\/a> trade.\u00a0 Eklund spent last season in the second-tier Allsvenskan with Djurgardens, helping them earn a promotion to the top level this season.\u00a0 Heading into the draft, he was largely a consensus top-10 selection so the Isles certainly felt fortunate to get him where they did.<\/p>\n

On top of his play in the SHL this season, Eklund served as an alternate captain for Sweden at the most recent World Juniors, a country that won their first gold medal in the event in 14 years.\u00a0 He finished tied for fourth on the team in scoring with two goals and six assists in seven games.\u00a0 That was a small improvement in points over his first time in the event in 2024-25 when he had four goals and two helpers in seven contests.<\/p>\n

Eklund has already signed his entry-level contract, a three-year deal that technically began this season.\u00a0 However, since he isn\u2019t playing in ten or more NHL games this season, the start of the deal will slide, meaning Eklund will still have three years left on his deal when he makes his debut in North America next season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It has been a solid post-draft season for Islanders prospect Victor Eklund.\u00a0 Making the jump to the SHL…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":578804,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[42],"tags":[1301,293,80192,62,67,132,68,69619],"class_list":["post-578803","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-new-york-islanders","tag-nhl","tag-shl","tag-sports","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us","tag-victor-eklund"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116043959819974415","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/578803","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=578803"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/578803\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/578804"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=578803"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=578803"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=578803"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}