Canucks assign 2022 first-round pick to AHL

Canucks top forward prospect Jonathan Lekkerimaki’s time in North America has begun. The Swedish winger is heading to British Columbia to join AHL Abbotsford for the remainder of the season, GM Patrik Allvin announced Monday.

The 19-year-old has remained in the Swedish professional circuit since the Canucks made him the 15th overall pick in the 2022 draft. Things didn’t start well for the highly-touted prospect, though. He had an underwhelming performance last season in the second-tier HockeyAllsvenskan, recording just three goals and nine points in 29 regular-season games for Djurgårdens IF, but exploded in the postseason with 15 points in 15 games as they lost the league final (and promotion back to the top-tier Swedish Hockey League) to Modo.

That was enough to convince Vancouver to sign Lekkerimäki to his three-year entry-level contract last summer, putting the team in some control of where he plays. Both sides decided it was best to keep him in Europe, but with Djurgårdens failing to gain promotion, the Canucks wanted to give him a change of scenery and a change to demonstrate what he could do in the top-flight SHL. Thus, he was assigned to Örebro HK, where exploded to finish as the team’s leading scorer with 19 goals and 31 points in 46 games. His season there ended early last week after Örebro was defeated by Luleå HF in their eighth-final playoff series. Örebro scored only twice in the three-game series, both coming in Game 1.

The Swedish youngster is already well-decorated internationally. He captured bronze and silver medals with Sweden at the 2022 and 2024 World Junior Championships, respectively. He also won gold at the U18 World Juniors in 2022 and a bronze medal at that season’s Hlinka Gretzky Cup. While the Swedes fell to the Americans at this year’s WJC, it was not the fault of Lekkerimäki, who led the tournament with seven goals in seven games and received MVP honors.

Lekkerimäki is expected to return to Sweden at the end of the AHL season and attempt to crack the national team’s roster for the upcoming 2024 World Championship, CHEK’s Rick Dhaliwal reports. It may be his last stint back home for a while, as the 5-foot-11 sniper will be under consideration for making Vancouver’s opening night roster in 2024-25.