{"id":794608,"date":"2026-07-12T01:57:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-12T01:57:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/794608\/"},"modified":"2026-07-12T01:57:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-12T01:57:08","slug":"jets-viggo-bjorck-to-play-in-north-america-this-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/794608\/","title":{"rendered":"Jets’ Viggo Bjorck To Play In North America This Season"},"content":{"rendered":"

When the Jets selected Swedish center\u00a0Viggo Bj\u00f6rck<\/a>\u00a0with the eighth overall pick last month, they weren\u2019t expecting to see him in Winnipeg until spring 2027 at the earliest. He was entering the final season of his contract with Djurg\u00e5rdens IF of the Swedish Hockey League.<\/p>\n

Today, however, Djurg\u00e5rden announced<\/a> that they\u2019ve granted Bj\u00f6rck a release for the highly-touted 18-year-old to pursue opportunities in the Jets organization for 2026-27. He\u2019s yet to sign his entry-level contract, so he\u2019s ineligible to play NHL games for Winnipeg as of now, but there\u2019s plenty of time for that to change between now and training camp.<\/p>\n

As a first-round pick, the Jets would have been able to assign Bj\u00f6rck to the AHL outright following training camp without Djurg\u00e5rden\u2019s permission \u2013 regardless of his contractual status in Sweden \u2013 per the NHL\u2019s transfer agreement with the Swedish Ice Hockey Association. Still, today\u2019s news offers early confirmation that Bj\u00f6rck will be suiting up for either the Jets or AHL Manitoba when the puck drops on the 2026-27 campaign.<\/p>\n

Bj\u00f6rck became the Jets\u2019 No. 1 prospect by a wide margin as soon as he was selected, galvanizing a pool that most opined was near the middle of the league in strength. While undersized at just 5\u20199\u2033 and 181 lbs, the Stockholm native played nearly his entire draft season against professional competition in Sweden\u2019s top league and was expected to compete for Djurg\u00e5rden\u2019s first-line center job this season. In 42 SHL outings for Djurg\u00e5rden last year, he posted six goals and 15 points, leading the league in scoring among under-18 players. He was exceptional internationally, having nine points in seven games en route to a gold medal for Sweden at the World Juniors and adding a 1-5\u20136 scoring line in eight outings for the senior team at the World Championship in May.<\/p>\n

Expecting Bj\u00f6rck to go from a sheltered SHL role to being an NHL impact player as a rookie would be short-sighted, though, especially given his frame. It\u2019s most likely he gets a trial in Manitoba to start the season in a high-leverage role before being considered for a call-up. While he\u2019s coming from Europe, he\u2019s still slide-eligible this year, so if he played under 10 NHL games, the first year of his entry-level deal would defer to 2027-28.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When the Jets selected Swedish center\u00a0Viggo Bj\u00f6rck\u00a0with the eighth overall pick last month, they weren\u2019t expecting to see…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":794609,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[64,63,575,85,57882,6000],"class_list":["post-794608","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-nhl","tag-sports","tag-viggo-bjorck","tag-winnipeg-jets"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/794608","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=794608"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/794608\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/794609"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=794608"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=794608"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=794608"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}