Friends, USA Hockey’s World Junior Summer Showcase just recently concluded, but that doesn’t mean that preparations for the 2026 World Junior Championship tournament have paused.

On Thursday, rosters began trickling out for the upcoming 5 Nations event in Chomutov, Czechia at the end of August. Among the teams that announced rosters was Sweden, and they’re bringing Calgary Flames prospect Theo Stockselius to the event. Also participating in the 5 Nations games are Finland, Switzerland, Slovakia and Czechia.

A second-round selection of the Flames in the 2025 NHL Draft back in June, Stockselius spent part of last season with the Swedish men’s under-18 national team, and played with the national team at the World Junior A Challenge in the winter and the Under-18 World Championships in the spring – Sweden captured silver at both events.

Stockselius was not part of Sweden’s roster at the Summer Showcase, as the Swedes opted to take a smaller group in an effort to evaluate players – Canada and the United States basically brought two teams and rotated players, taking a different approach. As such, Sweden’s opted to take an entirely different group of players to the 5 Nations games.

Among the NHL draft choices suiting up for Sweden, besides Stockselius are netminder Mans Goos (Dallas), defencemen Karl Annborn (Seattle), Theo Hallquisth (Minnesota) and Gustav Sjoqvist (Vegas), and forwards Milton Gastrin (Washington), Jakob Ihs-Wozniak (Vegas) and Viktor Norringer (Nashville). Compared to the Summer Showcase contingent, Sweden’s roster is skewed towards European-based players and perhaps a bit leaner on star power. But that also means that the NHL draftees will be leaned upon to be difference-makers during the rapid-fire, four games in four nights event.

After the games in Czechia, the last evaluation opportunity for Sweden won’t be until the final cluster of 5 Nations games in November.

The 2026 World Junior Championship tournament runs Dec. 26, 2025 to Jan. 5, 2026 in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota.

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