This season has been, if nothing else, a busy one for Flyers center prospect Jack Berglund.

The last calendar year has seen him play at the SHL and U20 levels in Sweden, working hard to carve out a role for himself with his top team, take a spin through the North American game with the Phantoms in the spring, and take detours to represent his country on the national stage at both the World Juniors and World Championships. It’s been a long road, and a somewhat challenging one at times, but Berglund is approaching this winding process with a great deal of care and attention, honing his game with lessons taken in at each stop.

“I would say [I’ve learned] a lot,” he reflected at this year’s Development Camp. “I’m getting more and more like known [in terms of] what I am for type of player in juniors. Everyone can be like kind of same player and produce, [but] when you get higher up in the levels, you got to have to find your role to get your ice time. And I think that’s the been the most important part of this year, and like the World Championship, to find a good role to play and to play for a win and, yeah of course World Juniors as well was great experience, and I’m going to take that with me.”

Berglund stepped up as an exciting — but also valuable from a leadership standpoint, as the team’s captain — piece of that Swedish team, stepping up for them in a big way on the way to their gold medal victory. It was close to as positive of a final appearance as one could have hoped for in a final year of eligibility for the tournament, making a strong impression and coming away with the hardware to match, but just as critically, it would prove to be a major jumping off point for the rest of his season, as Berglund saw his usage with Farjestad (after a coaching change) increase dramatically, and to quite positive results, in turn. 

“After the World Juniors there, I got to play more, ” he explained. “And I think a lot of us as well it’s like [a] confidence boost. I got to play a lot in World Juniors that I haven’t been [able to] before and just took that experience with me, there. And that’s what they said to me as well. And, yeah, I got a lot of time on ice and a lot of special teams as well. So that was super fun and super helpful for the future as well to get a hold of it like for a real level in SHL, and it’s a great league, and yeah, so that was a great experience and I think that was helpful as well.”

Berglund saw his usage expand pretty significantly, and while he still brought to those minutes a standard defensively sound game, he also saw his production saw a nice little uptick in turn, as a reward for otherwise setting that sound foundation of play — before his time away for World Juniors, Berglund had produced just five points, all scored across just two of the first 35 games of the year, averaging around 12 or 13 minutes a night, but after his return, in jumping up to closer to 15 minutes or more per game, he recorded four goals and seven points and over his final 25 games of the season. 

Though the numbers aren’t world beating, it was still a pretty major step forward for him, particularly as far as the apparent trust from his coaching staff is concerned, but the work wasn’t done yet. Berglund seized quickly his next challenge, joining the Phantoms on a five-game stint to close out their season, getting a taste of the North American professional game for himself. 

“It was a great experience,” he said. “It was a different type of game with the smaller rink for example and different type of systems, and all of that. So, like I said, great experience, very different. So, I think it was it was fun to like, to get to play those games and get to know how it is over here.”

And though Berglund showed some positive flashes in his brief stint with the Phantoms, it was clear that he was still working through much of an adjustment period, as the game was coming at him a good bit faster than he may have been used to. Still, he was able to take some good lessons away from his time with the Phantoms in how to attack the game at that next level.

“I think it’s a lot like positioning-wise,” he explained, “where [you] should be, [and] just the timing of it, it’s a different timing. This, it’s just kind of a different game. So I think it’s a lot I need to learn and yeah, needs time, but I’m excited for it.”

And if it’s time that Berglund feels that he needs before he’s completely, doubtlessly ready to move over to the North American game, it’s time he will get. Loaned back to his SHL club in Farjestad for another season — a move that was announced back in the beginning of August — Berglund will have another year before him with an opportunity to play top minutes in Sweden’s top professional league (a role he’s already sliding into nicely through their slate of preseason action), continuing to hone his game and identity as a player.

The silver lining here is that, for as much optimism and excitement there is surrounding him after this surge in his game and stock, there’s no real need to rush Berglund to move over to the states. The Flyers and Phantoms alike have quite well stocked projected rosters as it is, they’ve moved out of downright desperation mode for centers in the right now, and that’s afforded them some more runway to offer Berglund to continue to develop. He was always going to be a bit of a project, but his ascension of late has shown just why the Flyers were right to be intrigued by him, and his willingness to stick with even the hardest parts of his development process has been paying off. There’s still work to be done, but he’s already showing a lot of promise that he can be just the type of player that the Flyers need, when he’s ready and the space opens up for him.