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Nils Åman signs in Sweden after four seasons with Canucks

Photo credit: © Bob Frid-USA TODAY Sports

By Jeff Paterson

Jul 22, 2026, 11:15 EDTUpdated: Jul 22, 2026, 11:16 EDT

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After four seasons in the Vancouver Canucks organization, Swedish centre Nils Åman is heading home to resume his hockey career. The unrestricted free agent, who was not offered a new contract by the Canucks, has signed with Djurgården IF of the Swedish Hockey League. According to on-line reports, it’s a three-year contract.

Djurgården Hockey

@DIFHockeyse

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✍️ Nils Åman är klar för Djurgården. 💬 – Jag längtar verkligen efter att få spela inför alla fantastiska Djurgårdssupportrar, säger Nils Åman. ▶️ Läs mer på hemsidan. #DIFHockey | #AlltidOavsett

8:00 PM · Jul 21, 2026

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The 26-year-old played a total of 132 games for the Canucks after signing with the club as a free agent in the summer of 2022. He appeared in 68 games in the 2022-23 season and posted career highs of four goals and 16 points. From there, his role diminished each subsequent season as he dressed for 43 games in 2023-24 and 19 games in the 2024-25 season. Last season, Åman played in just two games at the NHL level and spent the bulk of his time in AHL Abbotsford.

Over the course of his time in the Canucks organization, Åman just wasn’t able to make the most of his opportunities. He had size and skated reasonably well, but brought next to no offence to the game. And because of that, he struggled to tread water defensively. In Åman’s 132 games, the Canucks were outscored by 18 in his 5-on-5 minutes.

Through the years, Åman’s most frequent NHL linemates were Dakota Joshua, Conor Garland and Nils Hoglander followed by the collection of Curtis Lazar, Sam Lafferty, Phil Di Guiseppe and Jack Studnicka.

In Djurgården, Aman is joining a club that finished ninth in the 14-team SHL last season with a record of 25-24-3. It was eliminated in a qualifying round for the playoffs. Prior to his arrival in North America, the sixth round pick of the Colorado Avalanche in 2020 spent parts of six seasons in the Leksands IF organization with both the junior team and the SHL club.

Of course, no mention of Nils Åman is complete without referencing a 2024 story that named him the most attractive player in the NHL based on the findings of artificial intelligence. Åman rated 9.33 on a scale of 10 according to the betting website Tonybet which ran photos of more than 1,000 NHL players through AI software. Åman will take those rugged good looks back to Sweden next season. Of course, it’s always possible he could give the NHL another shot at some point down the road.

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