Anton Frondell is a 19-year-old Swedish forward drafted third overall by the Chicago Blackhawks in 2025, and he may open the 2026-27 season as their first-line centre while Connor Bedard recovers from shoulder surgery. He scored 20 goals in the SHL as an 18-year-old, won World Junior gold with Sweden, and played his first 12 NHL games last spring.
| Current team | Chicago Blackhawks |
| Position | Centre, also left wing |
| Shoots | Left |
| Born | 7 May 2007, Trångsund, Sweden |
| Height / weight | 6’1″ (186 cm) / around 200 lbs |
| Drafted | 2025, first round, 3rd overall, Chicago Blackhawks |
| Contract | Three-year entry-level deal, $982,500 cap hit, signed 15 July 2025 |
Why did Anton Frondell start hockey in pink figure skates?
Because his parents did not expect him to stick with it. Frondell comes from a tennis family — his father Henrik played competitively, as did his sister Alva, and his mother is Maria — and hockey was something the school offered to fill the months before the tennis season started.
So the family spent as little on it as they could. Frondell took his first strides at six in a borrowed pair of pink figure skates with another child’s name written on them. Only after a year of him refusing to stop did they buy him equipment of his own. The family still plays tennis together at their summer house.
Thirteen years later he was the third player chosen in the NHL Draft.
What are Anton Frondell’s career stats?
| Season | Team | League | GP | G | A | P |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2023-24 | Djurgårdens IF J20 | J20 Nationell | 29 | 18 | 21 | 39 |
| 2023-24 | Djurgårdens IF | HockeyAllsvenskan | 9 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| 2024-25 | Djurgårdens IF | HockeyAllsvenskan | 29 | 11 | 14 | 25 |
| 2025-26 | Djurgårdens IF | SHL | 43 | 20 | 8 | 28 |
| 2025-26 | Chicago Blackhawks | NHL | 12 | 3 | 6 | 9 |
The 2025-26 SHL line is unusually shaped: 20 goals and only eight assists. Those 20 goals are the fourth-highest total ever recorded by an SHL player aged 18 or under, and he became the second-youngest player in league history to score a hat-trick, at 18 years and 150 days. He was HockeyAllsvenskan rookie of the year the season before, and won the SHL’s award for most goals by a junior.
His 12 NHL games at the end of last season produced nine points.
What has Anton Frondell won with Sweden?
Gold at the 2026 World Junior Championship, with eight points in seven games — Sweden’s first World Junior title since 2012. He also took bronze at the 2024 U17 World Championship, silver at the World Junior A Challenge in both 2024 and 2025, and played the 2026 World Championship.
Is Anton Frondell a centre or a winger?
He is being made into a centre, and it is the defining question of his season. Frondell played most of his career on the wing, and spent the summer of 2026 converting: video study of Aleksander Barkov, faceoff technique, explosiveness sprints, and skating with Djurgården during their camp.
The number that explains the urgency is from his 12-game NHL stint — he won 30.2% of his faceoffs. That is the gap between him and the job.
“You need to know the whole game and how to play the role in the middle,” Frondell said of the switch.
Will Anton Frondell be Chicago’s first-line centre?
He is in line for it, at least to start. Connor Bedard had surgery on his left shoulder on 8 July 2026 with a recovery timeline of roughly four months, which puts his return somewhere in November. That leaves Chicago’s top centre spot open, and Frondell is the candidate — possibly alongside Patrick Kane.
It is an opportunity created by an injury rather than earned outright, and the faceoff number says the transition is not finished. But a 19-year-old getting first-line minutes on an NHL team for a month or more is how careers start.
Who is Anton Frondell’s family?
His father Henrik and his sister Alva both played competitive tennis; his mother is Maria. NHL Central Scouting’s Jukka-Pekka Vuorinen described Frondell as “a strong player with strong legs” with a “quick stick”; Frondell models his own game on Barkov.
He stands 185 cm tall, or 6’1″, and weighs 198 lbs. His build is central to his scouting profile — NHL.com described him as built like a military tank.
March 24, 2026, against the New York Islanders. He finished the season with nine points in 12 games.
He signed a three-year entry-level contract on July 15, 2025 with a $986,250 cap hit, running through 2027-28. The deal carries a substantial performance-bonus structure.
No — that went to Ivar Stenberg of Frölunda. Frondell won HockeyAllsvenskan Rookie of the Year the previous season and led all SHL rookies in goals.
