With two weeks left in the season, it’s becoming increasingly likely that the Calgary Flames will pick in the top five at the 2026 National Hockey League draft.

One of the top prospects available in the upcoming draft is Ivar Stenberg. The 18-year-old Swede is often ranked as the second-best draft eligible prospect, just behind Gavin McKenna. If the Flames were to draft him, Stenberg would be the 34th Swede to play for the Flames since moving to Alberta.

In 2025-26, the Flames have had three Swedes play for the team, with just two left on the roster. Of course, their captain, Mikael Backlund, is from Sweden. As is Victor Olofsson, a player the Flames acquired ahead of the trade deadline. One Swede they traded before the deadline was Rasmus Andersson. Back in 2021-22, the Flames had six Swedes play for them, the most in a single season in franchise history.

There have been quite a handful of notable Swedes to have played for the team throughout the years. Backlund is by far the longest running Swede, but in the 1990s, they employed Michael Nylander. And who could forget Kent Nilsson?

However, in this edition of Flashback Friday, we’ll take a look at Håkan Loob, who became the first Swede to score 50 goals in a season in National Hockey League history.

Håkan Loob’s 1987-88

Like many players from the Scandinavian country, Loob began his career playing in Sweden’s top league. The Flames drafted him 181st overall in the 1980 draft, but he didn’t come to North America until 1983-84. That season saw the forward score 30 goals and 55 points in 77 games, with two goals and five points in 11 post-season games.

He improved upon his totals in 1984-85, scoring 37 goals and 72 points, with three goals and six points in four playoff games. Loob reached the 30-goal mark for the third time in 195-86, scoring 31 goals and 67 points in 68 games, with an additional four goals and 14 points in 22 games as the Flames lost to the Montréal Canadiens in the 1986 Stanley Cup Finals.

Loob’s totals dipped in 1986-87, scoring a career-low 18 goals and 44 points in 44 games, with a goal and three points in five post-season games. But as they say, it’s always calm before the storm.

The Swede kicked off his season with a goal and an assist in a 5-1 victory over the Detroit Red Wings. Funnily enough, Loob was held goalless over the next five games, where he had three assists. He finally ended that goalless drought in a 5-4 loss to the New York Islanders, which started a four-game span where he had three goals.

For the next 11 games, Loob would score just four goals and 10 points as the Flames went 5-2-4, but he scored a goal and an assist in a 9-2 victory over the New Jersey Devils on Nov. 23, 1987. Loob followed that up with his first multi-goal game of the season, picking up a hat trick in a 4-2 victory over the Vancouver Canucks.

Those two games were the first of five where he scored at least a goal, giving him seven goals in five games as the Flames went 5-0-0. Loob was held off the scoresheet for the next three games, giving him 15 goals through his first 29 games. Then he scored five goals in a five-game span, ending 1987 with 21 goals and 44 points in 38 games.

Loob had modest goal scoring totals over the next seven games, finding twine just four times with 11 points as the Flames went 4-2-1. For the second time in 1987-88, Loob scored a hat trick against the Canucks, scoring three times with four points in a 7-5 victory.

After another three-game goalless drought, Loob scored four goals in a four game span, before scoring just two goals over his next 11 games. That gave him 34 goals and 73 points in 64 games with a month remaining in the season.

Loob went off in March, scoring four times in a 6-3 victory over the Philadelphia Flyers. The Edmonton Oilers kept him from scoring in their next game (he had two assists), but he scored a goal in each of his next two games. Mar. 10’s victory saw Loob pick up three assists, but he scored back-to-back hat tricks in his next two games, giving him 46 goals in 71 games.

His scoring dried up from there, scoring just three times over his next eight games, giving him 49 goals heading into the Flames’ final game of the season. Up 3-1 with about three minutes to go in their season, Loob finally found the back of the net for his 50th of the season, becoming the first Swede to reach that mark.

To this day, Loob remains the only Swede to score 50 goals in a season. In the Flames’ first season, Nilsson came just one goal shy of 50. The great Swedes of the 1990s and 2000s, Markus Näslund, Mats Sundin, Daniel Alfredsson, and Henrik Zetterberg all reach 40-goals, but never 40.

In recent times, Filip Forsberg scored 48 goals in 2023-24 and 42 goals in 2021-22. Elias Lindholm, another Swede who played for the Flames, also scored 42 goals in 2021-22. Including those two, there are six Swedes to reach the 40-goal mark at least once.

Loob’s goal scoring prowess continued into the 1988 playoffs, scoring eight goals and nine points in nine games. His final NHL season was in 1988-89, as he scored 27 goals and 85 points in 79 games. Loob helped the Flames win their first and only Stanley Cup (so far), scoring eight goals and 17 points in 22 games before returning to Sweden.

The Slite native played the rest of his career in Sweden, retiring following the 1995-96 season. Loob finished his NHL career with 193 goals and 429 points in 450 games, with an additional 26 goals and 54 points in 73 playoff games.

Ryley Delaney is a Nation Network writer for FlamesNation, Oilersnation, and Blue Jays Nation. She can be followed on Twitter @Ryley__Delaney.

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