On Friday night, the Calgary Hitmen began their 2026-27 regular season with a home date against the visiting Red Deer Rebels.

During their 3-2 shootout win over the Rebels, the Hitmen blueline featured a big-bodied Swedish defenceman wearing a number-six sweater. However, it wasn’t Calgary Flames defence prospect Axel Hurtig patrolling their blueline. Instead, it was another Swedish Flames prospect, Jakob Leander.

A seventh-round selection of the Flames back in the 2025 NHL Draft, Leander is a pretty similar player type as Hurtig. He’s big, listed at 6’4″ and 196 pounds. He’s a stay-at-home, defensive type of defender. He plays a punishing, physical style defence. Heck, they share the same jersey number and Leander is staying with the same billets that hosted Hurtig for two seasons.

The big differences are that Leander is a right shot while Hurtig shoots left, and Hurtig had slightly more international opportunities so his game was possibly a bit more polished than Leander’s.

During the opening weekend of the WHL season, Leander played two games on the Hitmen’s top pairing alongside Hunter Aura. They were also paired together on the penalty kill. Leander registered his first WHL point, an assist in Sunday’s win in Edmonton, after hitting a post against Red Deer on Friday evening.

Leander noted the differences between Swedish hockey and the Western League following his debut game.

“It’s pretty fast,” said Leander. “It’s different compared to Swedish hockey. More like to ship the puck out and not clean play. It’s more harder. It’s feeling good.”

Leander added that the big difference between Sweden’s big ice and the WHL’s smaller North American ice is the speed of play.

After Friday night’s game, Hitmen head coach Dustin Friesen shared his thoughts on Leander’s first regular season appearance with his hockey club.

“Yeah, I’ve been really happy the way he’s been throughout training camp and pre-season,” said Friesen. “You know, I think there’s always an adjustment period coming from overseas. But I like his habits. I like his attitude. I like his work ethic. The other parts are going to come just with time, understanding how we practice, just our structure, and different things like that. But, you know, he’s just going to keep on getting better. But, you know, he’s a really positive addition to our group.”

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