A Calgary Flames prospect will have some North American options open to him for the 2026-27 season.

On Tuesday morning, the Canadian Hockey League held their annual import draft, an opportunity for teams from the three Canadian major junior circuits to obtain the rights of promising young European players. During that event, the Calgary Hitmen used their first-round import pick, 48th overall, to obtain the North American rights to Calgary Flames prospect Jakob Leander.

A product of Jönköping, Sweden, Leander is a right shot defenceman listed at 6’4″ and 209 pounds. He’s a big body and projects as a shutdown defender. He was selected in the seventh round, 208th overall, by the Flames in the 2025 NHL Draft. He’s spent the last four seasons in the HV71 organization in Sweden, playing with their under-16, under-18 and under-20 teams progressively. He had 12 points in 36 games in 2025-26 in the U20 Nationell, the top level of Swedish junior hockey.

CHL teams are limited to three import players at any given time. The imports used by the Hitmen during 2025-26 were Russian forward Andrei Molgachev, Czech defenceman Jakub Seidl and Swedish defenceman Axel Hurtig, another recent Flames draft choice who served as the team’s captain. Hurtig aged out of major junior following the 2025-26 campaign and he signed with the Flames, so he’ll be going pro this coming season. Molgachev and Seidl are both eligible to return to the Hitmen, who also own the North American rights to Flames prospect Theo Stockselius, who also signed his ELC with the Flames. The Hitmen also added the rights to Russian forward Artyom Katsuro in the import draft, so they have some options.

So… is Leander joining the Hitmen? Or Stockselius, for that matter? We are unsure, as the Flames and Hitmen would need to navigate their Swedish contractual rights with their developmental needs. There are complexities, but essentially if a player whose rights are held by a Swedish team moves to North America – either via the import draft or by being signed by an NHL team, or both – the Swedish team is owed some compensation.

The chatter when Stockselius was signed by the Flames was that he was potentially being loaned back to his club team, the SHL’s Djurgardens IF, for his 19-year-old season, but plans for his 2026-27 year have yet to be announced. But based on that, it feels like the real question is which of Leander or Katsuro may be joining the Hitmen.

We’ll probably get a clearer indication of how things will pan out in the coming weeks, but at the least least, Leander has some options going forward.