Happy draft season, Devils fans and fans of fellow non-playoff teams. Today, we are kicking off our annual NHL Draft prospect profiles. Kicking off this year is a Swedish right-handed center, Viggo Björck.
Viggo Björck turned 18 years old on March 12, and he is currently listed at 5’10” and 172 pounds. Under contract with Djurgårdens IF in the Swedish Hockey League through the 2026-27 season, Björck is unlikely to make a direct jump to the NHL, but he is projected to go somewhere in the mid-to-late lottery selections this year. Below, you can see his production history on his Elite Prospects page.
With Djurgårdens this season, Björck had six goals and nine assists in 42 games. That might seem like nothing special, but it is more than above average production for a 17-year old playing his first professional season. In 2024-25, Björck had 27 goals and 47 assists for Djurgårdens’s U20 juniors team. Draft eligible players who have seasons like Björck’s last one in juniors still end up pretty good prospects if they do that in their draft year (let alone their D-1), and he added a good professional season on top of it.
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This was an important season for Djurgårdens. After being promoted from the HockeyAllsvenskan league, they needed to stay above relegation territory. But aside from Björck, Djurgårdens had a good boost in the form of Jacob Josefson, who returned to the team after a four-years absence from hockey to help the team he once captained after leaving the NHL. With other NHL prospects in Anton Frondell and Victor Eklund, Djurgardens had a good mix of young talent and older veterans for their decent finish at ninth in the league table.
Rankings
Björck has been most recently ranked as follows, per his Elite Prospects page:
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4th by NHL Central Scouting (EU Skaters)
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6th by The Hockey News (Ferrari)
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6th by Sportsnet (Bukala)
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8th by Sportsnet (Cosentino)
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12th by The Hockey News (Kennedy)
What I See in the Tape
I am skipping the “what others say about Björck” section today because I have found that a lot of evaluations of him available online are from preliminary rankings, and I do not enjoy using too-dated information. As we get closer to draft season, I am sure we will start seeing more full-on draft profiles on guys like him.
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Usually, when we do these prospect profiles, I go looking for some shift-by-shift videos. I was able to get one for Bjorck, but this one was a little different than usual. This was a playoff game! From just a couple weeks ago, here is Viggo playing in Djugarden’s playoff series against the Malmo Redhawks. For a teenager just five days off his 18th birthday, playing in a tough league like the SHL, I was mainly looking for how he handled himself. You might expect the tempo and physicality to be different on that big sheet of ice, but there is still quite a lot of energy at hand.
Suffice to say, Viggo Björck surprised me. I might have expected a skilled teenaged center to be a little more peripheral on the European ice, but he is very engaged. In just the first five minutes here, he is winning board battles, finishing checks, and holding his own in collisions. He draws a penalty at 3:13 (on a play that I think would not have led to a stoppage in the NHL), but still seems to get the better of the collision. I know these were his playoffs, but if he were to bring this type of energy right to the National Hockey League, fans of any team would quickly love him.
After a great defensive shift with the team down one towards the end of the second period, Björck started his third period by winning another board battle against two opponents to send the puck below the net. After Björck went to the net, Anton Frondell held the puck by the boards, just by the hash marks of the faceoff circle. With two teammates in Björck and Eklund by the net, Frondell feeds a perfect centering play to Björck, who scored his team’s second game-tying goal of the night on the redirection!
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This is important to note: he is 5’10” and under 180 pounds. He’s not filled out yet. But I still see someone who is strong on the boards. Björck might keep his head down a bit too much at times, but he keeps his weight low and seems to come away with the puck a little quicker than his opponents. Defensively, one of the weaknesses I felt was apparent in his game here is actually something that might be easier for him on the smaller ice surface in North America. Björck tries to be mindful of the passing lanes, but he often seems a little off when trying to intercept passes. Engaging physically and playing right up to the opponent seems more Björck’s style.
On the power play nine minutes into the video, Björck has a couple entries broken up. On the third, he uses his wheels a little more to gain the zone cleanly, passing back to Eklund at the point on the backhand. This leads to a power play goal, with Björck picking up a secondary assist. Here, Björck seems to learn that going slow into the zone is not working, and he needs to beat the defenders the old fashioned way.
Towards the end of the third period, Björck drew a tripping penalty, giving his team a man advantage going into overtime. They did not convert there, but Björck was on the ice for another delayed penalty seven minutes into overtime. With the extra attacker, Björck went to the front of the net and looked for redirections and deflections, but a couple of chances were turned aside before the puck was touched up. On the power play, Björck set up from the left faceoff circle and worked the puck low to Victor Eklund. Eklund whipped it up to Anton Frondell, who hit the one-timer for a game-winning goal! Viggo Björck put up three points in his very first SHL playoff game in a 3-2 overtime victory.
For a full highlight video, see below:
My Thoughts
This will be Sunny Mehta’s first draft with the New Jersey Devils, and it will be interesting to see what kind of players fall to him (or don’t). As it is, I think Viggo Björck should be selected before the Devils virtually (boo) go to the podium. But if Mehta has his eye on Björck, he has a few things going for him. For starters, Björck is small and European. In last year’s NHL Draft, we saw General Managers around the league prioritize the size of players over their production potential. Since a different team will win the Stanley Cup this year, the copycat fad of the month may be a little different, but we will see when we get there.
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But last season, the first player who was drafted at Viggo Björck’s height or shorter was Cullen Potter (5’10” and 172 pounds) at 32nd overall by the Calgary Flames. Only two players under 6’0″ were drafted in the lottery: James Hagens (5’11” and 186 pounds) and Benjamin Kindel (5’11” and 180 pounds). So, despite his obvious skill and potential, Björck will have to convince GMs that he is worth passing a high-ceiling 6’4″ center over, and they have been particularly unwilling to do that over the last couple of years.
Like I mentioned earlier, public draft models may have liked Bjork more this season had he stayed in juniors and dominated lesser competition. However, this is a good time to inject some personal logic into the evaluation. Below is a comparison from Byron Bader’s Hockey Prospecting of Viggo Björck with the Devils’ own Cody Glass. If you do not know, Hockey Prospecting uses an NHLe system to predict how many expected equivalent NHL points a season in a different league is worth. The SHL has one of the highest NHLe ratings in the world, and may be on par with the KHL above the AHL.
An NHLe north of 30 in the player’s draft year tends to lead to pretty high “star probabilities,” which means a forward who produces over 57.5 points per 82 games throughout his career. Since Cody Glass tore up the WHL in his draft year, it didn’t matter he was a little weaker the year prior. Add on the fact that he is pretty big, and that made him a lottery pick in his draft. For Björck, though, had he just tacked on a few points to his 74 points in 42 games in the 2024-25 season in the J20 Nationell, he would have had a profile equivalent to Glass or better. I put a decent amount of stock into these sorts of broad evaluations, but we have to keep competition in mind. Björck had a good season in a tough league. Often, players who do well in juniors and get promoted to a league like the SHL at his age are happy to chip in just a couple points over long stretches in fourth line minutes.
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That aside, how would he fit with the Devils? Well, I think. We have talked and talked about how the Devils desperately need more center depth, and Björck was often used in a center role for Djurgårdens this season despite his age. How he plays that role is even more important. From the shift tape I watched in his first playoff game, it seems like Björck is smart about not leaving the middle of the ice too often, which will be even more important in North America. He won his board battles more often than not, often beating two opponents for the puck. He is difficult to knock around in those areas because of his low center of gravity. Currently, the Devils’ only great board worker is Nico Hischier. I think Björck might be able to achieve a similar level (even if not quite as good) of proficiency at winning the puck in the NHL. From Lassi Alanen’s European tracking project, see how well-rounded his game is. At just 18 years old, he is one of the most well-rounded centers at five-on-five in the SHL.
He is also very efficient in his movement. I did not notice him drifting away from the play, and he had to be pretty patient at times on defense because of how wide their ice surface is. He might actually be more difficult to play against in the NHL when he can keep smaller gaps to puck carriers from the middle of the ice with the time it takes him to close the gap being much shorter. Offensively, he is able to perform some solid puck movement and seems smart about avoiding dangerous plays. Djurgårdens did not have success on the rush in this particular game, but he knows how to turn the jets up a bit when entering the zone. If a North American coach gets a handle on that, he could become a dangerous forechecker with his apparent skill on the boards and his strong balance. Someone who is already trying to make a living around the net at his age should be destined to do great things in the NHL.
The big question is how much his size dings him among league GMs. In my opinion, Viggo Björck is someone to mark early for the New Jersey Devils. He does not need a lot of seasoning, and could probably even be in the NHL in 2026-27 in a third-line role or in the AHL in a first-line role (under the exception rules) if he were not already under SHL contract. I will circle back on him in about a month when we have more profiles up, but there is a very good chance that he ends up being one of the best lottery bets after the top five.
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If he falls to the Devils, there are so many reasons to select him. He seems like a great fit for the game that Jack Hughes wants to play, as Björck would give him outstanding forechecking along with an ability to establish position by the net and redirect pucks past the goaltender. Or, he can play third-line center and give the Devils a legitimate threat of a line behind Hischier and Hughes, especially if Cody Glass either moves up the lineup at wing or if his contract extension proves too expensive. Björck might not end up a true top-line center, but he has the foundation to get there. A little more selfishness on offense might be necessary. But if you are looking for a player to complement the game that Hischier and Hughes are trying to play on this team, Viggo Björck might be your guy.
Your Thoughts
What do you think of Viggo Björck? Do you think he will buck the multi-year trend of players under 5’11” not being drafted in the first round? Do you think he will fall to the Devils? What do you think of his game in comparison to his stature? Leave your thoughts in the comments below, and thanks for reading.
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