The Winnipeg Jets‘ defence corps, if all goes to plan, will have a serious Swedish flavour to it in the coming years.
The top prospect in the Jets system is right-shot defenceman Elias Salomonsson, a 2022 second-rounder. He’s now joined in the pipeline by fellow Swede Sascha Boumedienne, a left-shot blue-liner who was taken 28th overall by the Jets during Round 1 of the 2025 NHL Draft on Friday night.
Boumedienne made a big jump to NCAA hockey this past season, joining the Boston University Terriers as one of the youngest players in college hockey.
“Coming in, I wasn’t the strongest guy, and it was a little bit of a shock at the beginning of the year,” he told The Athletic in April. “Battles were a little hard, just being knocked off the puck and being able to protect the puck.”
Boumedienne found his footing over the course of the year, then ended the season with a bang at the U-18 World Championship in April. Skating for the Swedish squad that captured silver at the event, Boumedienne established a new scoring record for defencemen at the event by registering 14 points in seven games.
“He really jumped off the page there,” Sportsnet prospect expert Sam Cosentino said on the broadcast. “As the youngest defenceman in college hockey, it’s pretty tough to make your mark against the bigger, older competition. You get back with your peer group at the end of the year, you start to gain confidence. He played over 20 minutes per game at the under-18s and with that, handling the puck often to end up with those 14 points.”
That offensive explosion surely caught the eye of the Jets’ scouting staff as they contemplated who might be available to the team at the end of Round 1.
Now that Winnipeg has its guy, let’s take a closer look at the newest Jet.
Team: Boston University (NCAA)
Position: Defenceman
Shoots: Left
Hometown: Stockholm, Sweden
Age: 18 (Jan. 17, 2007)
Height: Six-foot-one
Weight: 175 pounds
NO STRANGER TO NORTH AMERICA
Boumedienne may be a proud Swede, but he’s certainly familiar with North America. His father, Josef Boumedienne, was a fourth-round pick of the New Jersey Devils in 1996. He played a total of 47 career NHL contests and nearly 300 more in the AHL. Josef also held various titles in the Columbus Blue Jackets organization after his playing days, including director of European scouting.
Sascha played AAA youth hockey in Ohio, where his father worked, and made the jump to Jr. A hockey in the same state with the United States Hockey League’s Youngstown Phantoms in 2023-24.
The Boumediennes are clearly a hockey family as Sascha’s younger brother, 2010-born Wilson Boumedienne, is already a fantastic player at the prep school level in Rhode Island.
Boumedienne’s calling card is moving his lanky body around the ice with ease. He’s not going to run opponents through the wall, but he can get up on them quickly and use a good stick to thwart opportunities.
“Elite skater, area defender,” said Sportsnet’s in-house scout Jason Bukala after the Jets made the pick. “He’s not going to be a guy who is going to bump you a lot, but he’s going to take time and space away.”
If, down the road, Boumedienne can also add some of the offence he flashed at the U-18s, Jets fans are going to be over the moon about this selection.
