How top 2026 NHL Draft-eligible prospects performed at the 2025 World Junior A Challenge

2026 NHL Draft

TROIS-RIVIÈRES, Quebec – The World Junior A Challenge offers a unique opportunity for NHL draft scouting. Team Sweden sends most of its top Under-18 talents to the tournament to face older Canadian teams and some top non-USNTDP players from the USHL. The tournament serves as excellent preparation for the World Junior Under-18 event later in the season.

This year, scouts got to see Alexander Command, Malte Gustafsson, Marcus Nordmark, and plenty of other interesting prospects from a stronger Swedish class play on a smaller ice surface, and adapt to the different style of game that the surface dictates.

Some prospects fared better than others.

Here we’ll review the play of some of these draft-eligible prospects, and a couple others from the U.S. team.

Sweden

Adam Andersson, C, Leksands IF U20

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2026 NHL Draft WJAC-19 Adam Andersson Nils Bartholdsson Alexander Command Axel Elofsson Malte Gustafsson Landon Hafele Theodor Knights