Maple Leafs prospect Victor Johansson wins gold with Sweden at 2026 World Juniors

A Toronto Maple Leafs prospect will be coming home with the shiniest piece of international hardware there is after his home country captured gold at the 2026 World Junior Hockey Tournament.

2024 fourth-round pick Victor Johansson, representing Team Sweden, won the gold medal game over Team Czechia, who eliminated fellow Maple Leafs prospect Ben Danford and Team Canada in the semi-finals on Sunday. Sweden defeated Czechia 4-2 to win gold for the first time since 2012, a team that had the likes of Mika Zibanejad, Filip Forsberg, and William Karlsson on the roster. It was their third medal in five years, winning silver at the 2024 tournament and bronze at the 2022 tournament.

Johansson himself didn’t have a huge impact on his team – he was scratched in two of the round robin games but ended up playing through all the elimination games, finishing the tournament with 0 points in five games. But statistical contributions or not, he was a member of the team that helped his team capture a gold medal which is something only a handful of players can say.

Meanwhile, Danford and Team Canada defeated Team Finland 6-3 in the Bronze Medal game to avoid going three years in a row without a medal since the late 1970s/early 1980s. Danford finished the tournament with one assist in seven games.

Johansson, 19, has spent the majority of the 2025-26 season playing for IK Oskarshamn of Sweden’s Allsvenskan league, which is their equivalent to the AHL. He’s gotten into two games with Leksands IF of the SHL, their top pro league, going pointless in two games.

Because Johansson was drafted from a team overseas, he has a few more years before the Leafs decide whether or not they want to sign him to an entry-level contract. With players like Danford who are already set to compete for jobs on the Toronto Marlies next season, it’s likely that Johansson will spend the next few years of his career in Sweden before the Leafs make a decision based on his development to that point.