Captials select Milton Gastrin No. 37 overall in 2025 NHL Draft

The Washington Capitals looked to Europe with the No. 37 overall selection, selecting Modo Hockey forward Milton Gastrin out of the Swedish Hockey League at the 2025 NHL Draft on Friday at The Peacock Theater in Los Angeles.

Playing with Modo’s Under-20 team, Gastrin scored 18 goals and 24 assists for 42 points in 40 games. He also played eight games with the senior men’s team, going pointless.

In two seasons with Modo’s U-20 team, Gastrin has 25 goals and 33 assists for 58 points in 81 career games.

In the final edition of his 2025 NHL Draft rankings, Daily Faceoff’s Steven Ellis had Gastrin ranked 24th, calling the 6-foot-1, 185-pound forward “quite a responsible two-way player.”

“Gastrin will not be a point producer in the NHL, but he will do so many other things that excite you,” Ellis wrote. “He’s defensively responsible, wins a ton of faceoffs and can play the wing when you need him to. We’ve seen him play with some of Sweden’s better players in international junior tournaments, and he has never looked out of place.”

Anton Frondell, whom Ellis has ranked as the fifth-highest prospect in the 2025 NHL Draft, told the DFO prospect analyst that his fellow Swede in Gastrin has “such a high compete level.”

“He’s a beast having to play against him. He never has a bad game,” Frondell said. “You know what you get from him and I really trust him.”

Internationally, Gastrin represented Sweden at the 2024 Hlinka Gretzky Cup, scoring three goals and seven assists for 10 points in five games, helping Sweden win a bronze medal. Nearly a year later, he helped Sweden earn a silver medal at the 2025 IIHF Under-18 Championship, serving as captain. He scored three goals and seven assists for 10 points in seven games.