Background and career
Henrik Lars Sedin (seh-DEEN; born 26 September 1980) is a Swedish ice hockey executive and former centre who played his entire 17-season National Hockey League (NHL) career with the Vancouver Canucks from 2000 to 2018. He additionally served as the Canucks' captain from 2010 until his retirement. He and identical twin brother Daniel both currently serve as President of Hockey Operations for the Canucks. Born and raised in Örnsköldsvik, Sweden, the brothers played together throughout their careers; the pair were renowned for their effectiveness as a tandem. Henrik, a skilled passer, was known as a playmaker (150+ more career NHL assists than Daniel) while Daniel was known as a goal-scorer (150+ more career NHL goals than Henrik). Sedin tallied 240 goals and 830 assists, for 1,070 points, in 1,330 NHL games, ranking him as the Canucks' all-time leading points scorer. Sedin began his career in the Swedish Hockey League with Modo Hockey in 1997 and was co-recipient, with brother Daniel, of the 1999 Guldpucken as Swedish player of the year. Selected third overall—one pick after brother Daniel—by the Canucks in the 1999 NHL entry draft, Sedin spent his entire NHL career in Vancouver. After four seasons with the club, he became the Canucks' top-scoring centre in 2005–06. He has since won three Cyrus H. McLean Trophies as the team's leading point-scorer (from 2007–08 to 2009–10) and one Cyclone Taylor Award as the team's most valuable player (2010). In 2009–10, he won the Hart Memorial Trophy as well as the Art Ross Trophy as the NHL's most valuable player and leading point-scorer, respectively. He was also named to the NHL first All-Star team that year and again in 2010–11, a season that included an appearance in the Stanley Cup Final, where Vancouver lost to the Boston Bruins in seven games. That summer, Henrik and Daniel were named co-recipients of the Victoria Scholarship as Swedish athletes of the year. Alongside his brother, Henrik was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 2022. Internationally, Sedin has competed on Sweden's national ice hockey team. He is a two-time Olympian and helped Sweden to a gold medal at the 2006 Winter Games in Turin. In five appearances at the IIHF World Championships, he has won bronze medals in 1999 and 2001 and clinched the world title in 2013. At the junior level, he appeared in one World U17 Hockey Challenge (where he won silver), two European Junior and three World Junior Championships.
Henrik was born on 26 September 1980 in Örnsköldsvik, Sweden, six minutes before his identical twin brother, Daniel. The pair have two older brothers, Stefan and Peter. Their father, Tommy, is a school vice principal who played for Modo Hockey in the 1960s; their mother, Tora, is a nurse. Henrik began playing organized hockey with Daniel when they were eight. They did not regularly play on the same line until Daniel switched from centre to wing at the age of 14. Henrik and Daniel attended high school at Nolaskolan Gymnasium in their hometown in Sweden while playing professionally for Modo Hockey.
Aged 16, Henrik and Daniel Sedin began their professional careers in 1997–98 with Modo Hockey of the Swedish Hockey League. Henrik recorded a goal and five points over 39 games during his rookie season. In his second year with Modo, he improved to 12 goals and 34 points, joint second in team scoring with Samuel Påhlsson, behind Daniel. At the end of the season, Henrik and Daniel were named co-recipients of the Guldpucken, the Swedish player of the year award. The Sedins were considered top prospects for the 1999 NHL entry draft. Rated as the top European prospects, they were expected to be top five selections and expressed a desire to play for the same team. Their agent, Mike Barnett, president of international talent agency IMG, presented them with two options to circumvent the usual NHL draft process, allowing them to play together. The first option was for the pair to enter the 1999 draft and not sign with their respective NHL clubs for two years, allowing them to become unrestricted free agents. This option required that they play junior ice hockey in North America, which was not their intention. Barnett also suggested that either Henrik or Daniel opt out of the 1999 draft, in the hope that the same team that selected the first twin would select the other the following year. On the possibility of the Sedins' playing for separate teams, Vancouver Canucks scout Thomas Gradin commented, "They're good enough to play with anyone, but separately their capacity might decrease by 10 or 15 percent." Nevertheless, Henrik and Daniel both entered the 1999 draft expecting to be selected by separate teams. However, then-Canucks general manager Brian Burke already possessed the third overall pick and through a series of transactions he obtained the second overall pick. He used these second and third overall picks to select Daniel and Henrik, respectively. Gradin notified them of the Canucks' intentions five minutes before the draft. Although then-Tampa Bay Lightning general manager Rick Dudley was ready to make Daniel his first overall choice before opening negotiations, he was convinced by Burke and Barnett that Daniel would not sign unless his brother was on the same team. On 27 July 1999, a month following the draft, Henrik and Daniel signed three-year contracts with the Canucks. As the contract did not require them to begin playing in Vancouver immediately, they announced on 12 August they would return to Sweden to play one more season with Modo. During the 1999–2000 season, Henrik led Modo in scoring with 47 points in 50 games, two points ahead of Daniel. The two brothers played on a line with New York Islanders prospect Mattias Weinhandl.
The 2000–01 NHL season was Henrik's first for the Canucks. His debut was the team's first game of the campaign on 5 October 2000, a 6–3 loss to the Philadelphia Flyers. With the game, Henrik and Daniel became the fourth pair of twins to have played in the NHL. Three days later, Henrik assisted on Daniel's first career NHL goal in a 5–4 win against the Tampa Bay Lightning. The goal tied the game at 4 with 1:26 left in regulation. In a 5–2 win against the Toronto Maple Leafs on 16 October 2000, Henrik scored his first NHL goal and added an assist on Daniel's second career goal. Henrik tallied 29 points over the course of the campaign—second among team rookies to Daniel's 34 points. He and Daniel played primarily on the Canucks' third line. Henrik improved to 36 points in his second NHL season; he finished with five goals in his last six games, taking his season total to 16. In the opening game of the 2002 Stanley Cup playoffs, Henrik scored the overtime winner against the first-seeded Detroit Red Wings to put the Canucks 1–0 ahead in the series; it was his first NHL playoff goal. Detroit went on to eliminate the Canucks in six games en route to winning the Stanley Cup. During the 2002–03 season, Henrik suffered a sprained left shoulder that forced him out of three games. He had sustained the injury during a game against the Edmonton Oilers on 14 December 2002. Henrik also missed a game on 23 February 2003 because of a hand injury. He played 78 games during 2002–03 and finished the campaign with 39 points. After their third NHL season, Henrik and Daniel were re-signed to one-year, US$1.125 million contracts on 29 July 2003. The Sedins began the 2003–04 season on a line with first-year player Jason King. The trio were named the "Mattress Line" (two twins and a King) and formed the Canucks' second scoring unit until King was reassigned to the team's minor league affiliate midway through the season. On 7 November 2003, St. Louis Blues forward Doug Weight was suspended four games without pay for a cross-check he delivered to Henrik during a game the previous day; Henrik was not injured. On 17 December 2003, Henrik was a healthy scratch for the first and only time in his NHL career. He was also sidelined for five games in March 2004 due to sore ribs. Over 76 games, Henrik increased his points total over the previous season to 42. During the off-season, Henrik and Daniel were re-signed to one-year, US$1.25 million contracts on 10 September 2004. During the 2004–05 lockout, Henrik returned to Sweden to play for Modo with Daniel and their Canucks teammate Markus Näslund. During a game against Mora IK on 20 November 2004, Henrik received a slash that required a minor amputation to his left little finger. He finished the season with 36 points in 44 games, third in team scoring behind Peter Forsberg and Mattias Weinhandl.
As NHL play resumed in 2005–06, Henrik returned to the Canucks and scored 75 points, finishing second in team scoring behind Markus Näslund, who had 79 points. His breakout season was sparked, in part, by the signing of winger Anson Carter, who played on the Sedins' line and led the team in goal-scoring. The trio matched the scoring pace of the Canucks' top line of Näslund, Todd Bertuzzi and Brendan Morrison. Vancouver's head coach at the time, Marc Crawford, recalled that season as marking the Sedins' ascent as leaders on the team, stating, "By the end of that year, they definitely were our top guys. They had surpassed Näslund and Bertuzzi." During the off-season, Henrik and Daniel re-signed with the Canucks to identical three-year, $10.75 million contracts on 30 June 2006. Despite the team's success with Carter, the Canucks did not re-sign him; he joined the Columbus Blue Jackets the following season.
In the 2006–07 season, Henrik established himself as the Canucks' top-line centre. Winger Taylor Pyatt, who had been acquired in a trade from the Buffalo Sabres during the off-season, replaced Carter as the Sedins' linemate and went on to score a career-high 23 goals. For the fifth-straight season, Henrik recorded a personal best, with 81 points; he set a new Canucks record for assists in one season with 71, beating the 62 by André Boudrias in 1974–75. Henrik passed Boudrias on 25 March 2007, with a three-assist effort during a 5–4 loss to the Colorado Avalanche. In the opening game of the 2007 playoffs against the Dallas Stars, Henrik scored a game-winning, quadruple-overtime goal to end the seventh longest game in NHL history (and longest in Canucks history) at 138 minutes and six seconds of play. He struggled to produce offensively in his 12 games in the playoffs, however, managing four points as the Canucks were eliminated by the eventual Stanley Cup champion Anaheim Ducks in the second round.
Sources
Net-worth figure: Celebrity Net Worth (October 2026), in USD. Biography and career facts: the person's Wikipedia article and linked reporting. Snapshot date for all StarWorth figures: 28 October 2026.
