Love Härenstam is a Swedish goaltender for Södertälje SK, drafted by the St. Louis Blues in 2025 and named the best goaltender of the 2026 World Junior Championship. Love Härenstam went six-for-six in that tournament, including a final against the Czechs, and Sweden hadn’t won it in 14 years. He has not signed an NHL contract, and that is on purpose.
| Fast facts: Love Härenstam | |
|---|---|
| Current team | Södertälje SK, HockeyAllsvenskan |
| Rights held by | St. Louis Blues, NHL |
| Shirt number | 30 |
| Position | Goaltender |
| Catches | Left |
| Born | 18 January 2007, Stockholm |
| Height | Listed between 185 and 188 cm depending on the source |
| Drafted | 2025, sixth round, 179th overall, St. Louis Blues |
| Contract status | No NHL contract. Signed with Södertälje for 2026-27 |
| Previous clubs | Skellefteå AIK, Luleå HF, Djurgårdens IF, Värmdö HC |
Love Härenstam’s World Junior Championship gold
Sweden went seven games and won all seven, beating the Czechs 4-2 in the final in Minnesota on 5 January 2026. It was Sweden’s third World Junior title and the first in fourteen years. Härenstam started six of the seven and won all six, with a 91.1 save percentage and 2.43 goals against.
The semi-final is the one people remember. Sweden beat Finland 4-3 on penalties, and Härenstam saved seven of the eight he faced. In the final, he made 27 saves on 29 shots.
The IIHF directorate named him the tournament’s best goaltender, and the media picked him for the all-star team. His teammate Anton Frondell put it more bluntly to NHL.com: “So, yeah, thank Love for the gold.”
It was the third gold in Swedish history at the tournament, after 1981 and 2012, and the squad was coached by Magnus Hävelid with Jack Berglund as captain. Härenstam’s own account of the semi-final shootout was that he was thinking about what his club goaltending coach tells him, and that Södertälje ends their practices with penalty shots: five in a row before you are allowed off the ice.
Love Härenstam’s career stats
| Season | Team | League | GP | W-L | GAA | SV% | SO |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025-26 regular season | Södertälje SK | HockeyAllsvenskan | 32 | 14-18 | 1.81 | .920 | 5 |
| 2025-26 playoffs | Södertälje SK | HockeyAllsvenskan | 11 | 6-5 | 2.36 | .918 | 2 |
| 2024-25 | Skellefteå AIK J20 | J20 Nationell | 19 | 10-9 | 3.31 | .895 | Not published |
Completed seasons. He dressed for 11 SHL games with Skellefteå in 2024-25 without playing a minute, which is why there is no senior row for that season. He also played for Sweden’s under-18 side that year, going 9-3 with a .909 save percentage across two tournaments.
Härenstam’s goals-against average fell from 3.31 in junior hockey to 1.81 in his first season as a professional starter, and his save percentage rose from .895 to .920. Those are different leagues, and the comparison has limits, but the jump came in the season that followed his draft, not before it.
Love Härenstam’s season in Södertälje
He arrived as an 18-year-old with no senior games behind him and left as the league’s best goaltender. Södertälje’s own record of the season has him at 32 games, a 1.81 average, a .920 save percentage, and five shutouts in the regular season, then eleven more games in the playoffs.
HockeyAllsvenskan named him both Rookie of the Year and Goaltender of the Year, and he won the Guldgallret, the league’s award for its best junior. He was also a finalist for the league’s most valuable player, though he did not win.
He was direct about it afterward. “I never would have believed that the season could have gone as well as it did,” he told The Hockey News. “I won the goalie of the year and rookie of the year.” On what the season taught him: “Nothing comes easy and it helped me understand that you can prosper with hard work.”
The team around him did not match the goaltending. Södertälje finished the regular season with a losing record while he was in net, which is the context for a 1.81 average: he was facing a lot and conceding little. The eleven playoff games that followed took the club to a semi-final.
Love Härenstam’s draft year
St. Louis took him 179th overall in the sixth round in 2025, after a season split between Luleå and Skellefteå at junior level. NHL Central Scouting had ranked him second among European goaltenders, which is high for a player who went that late.
The scouting consensus was athleticism first and technique second. The praise was for his reflexes and agility; the reservation was that his raw ability was not yet controlled and that he could be beaten high.
Love Härenstam and the St. Louis Blues
He belongs to them, and he does not play for them. The Blues hold his rights; he has not signed an entry-level contract, and he agreed another season with Södertälje instead.
That was a joint decision rather than a rejection. “We both came up that it was the best plan was for me to stay at least one more year,” he told The Hockey News.
Note the family name, because the search results get crossed. His father is Chris Härenstam, a commentator at Swedish public broadcaster SVT.
Love Härenstam’s goaltending style
Calm, by his own account, and quick across the crease. He describes his strengths as speed from post to post, reading the play early, and staying composed; he rates the reading the highest.
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