On Tuesday, NU Hockey Blog broke the news that Northeastern will be committing three players out of the portal to play for them in 2026-27. We’ve already published our scouting report on Miguel Marques, the winger coming to Northeastern from Maine, and Alex Pineau, the defenseman coming up from Brown. Now we turn our attention to the second blue liner coming to Huntington Avenue: Joel Kjellberg.
Kjellberg is a 6-foot, 190 pound right shot defenseman that comes to Northeastern after two seasons at Arizona State, playing in the NCHC, largely considered the best conference in the sport. He hails from Nacka, Sweden, and is set to become the first European player for the Huskies since Ludwig Karlsson in 2012-13. His father Patric played in the NHL for five seasons with Nashville and Anaheim, and his brother played college hockey at RPI and Northern Michigan.
In two years at ASU he played 70 games, scoring 11 points each season and scoring his first two collegiate goals last season as a sophomore. Nearly all 22 points came at even strength; only one assist came on the powerplay, and two came shorthanded. Last season he averaged over 21 minutes of ice time per game, second-most among Sun Devil defensemen. Per InStat data, Kjellberg had 32 blocks, won 50% of his puck battles, completed 89% of his passes, and had a 1.70:1 takeaway to giveaway ratio. While +/- is not a great stat in the modern age, on a team that struggled defensively, he was a -1 on a team that only had two regular players even or better. By the end of the season, Kjellberg was playing on the ASU top pair the majority of games. Prior to ASU, Kjellberg played for Cedar Rapids in the USHL, where he was teammates with current Huskies Amine Hajibi, Andy Moore, and former Husky Dylan Hryckowian.
In the above card generated by PuckPreps we can see that Kjellberg performs very well as a play-driving, transition-generating defenseman. Not usually the one to pull the trigger on the shots himself, he thrives being the one to carry the puck into the offensive zone, but can sharply exit the defensive zone with his passes. His defensive stats reflect the team struggle ASU had last season, but his -48 shot differential over the season is one of the better marks among ASU defensemen last year.
In our eyes, he profiles similar to the type of defenseman that Dylan Compton was for Northeastern last year, though with more minutes projected for Kjellberg this season compared to Compton last year. Kjellberg is a player we foresee being an option at all three spots of the right side of the defensive pairs, but we currently are penciling him into the RD1 slot given his experience and workload at ASU in the same role. With players like Jordan Tourigny and Marcus Kearsey enrolling, Kjellberg may not be asked to run the first powerplay unit, but those transition and passing stats indicate the ability to run one if called upon.
Congratulations to Joel and welcome to Northeastern!
As always, go Huskies!