Despite dominating the Swedish second league in 2019-20, Jonathan Dahlen still isn’t ready to come to the NHL. The 22-year old San Jose Sharks prospect will be remaining in Sweden for next season, his agent explaining to Curtis Pashelka of The Mercury News that he still does want to play in the NHL someday.
Dahlen, a second-round pick by the Ottawa Senators in 2016, has already been traded twice in his short professional career. Originally signing his entry-level deal with the Vancouver Canucks in 2017 he has played just 63 AHL games so far, instead spending most of the contract loaned back to his club team in Sweden.
After putting up two point-per-game seasons for Timra in 2016-17 and 2017-18, Dahlen returned this year and took his game to an entirely different level. The skilled forward was named the Allsvenskan MVP after putting up 77 points in 51 games, leading the league in goals with 36.
His entry-level contract will expire this summer, meaning the Sharks will have to extend a qualifying offer in order to retain his exclusive rights. You can bet they’ll do that even if he doesn’t plan on coming over in 2020-21, given the upside he still represents as a future top-six NHL player.
this should be interesting
@DarkSide830 – With the almost-guaranteed cap turmoil in the years to come, don’t you see more of these guys NOT getting QO’s and a renewed surge in mining of the European Tour for guys that actually want to come over when they are ready? In other words, the definition of patience will change for some teams that don’t want to mess around with possibly marginal players that had shown some upside, but are maybe ‘tweeners. Now, that wouldn’t apply to highly regarded prospects, but maybe some of the other guys.