Julius Honka (born 3 December 1995) is a Finnish professional

ice hockey Ice hockey (or simply hockey) is a team sport played on ice skates, usually on an ice skating rink with lines and markings specific to the sport. It belongs to a family of sports called hockey. In ice hockey, two opposing teams use ice h ...

defenceman Defence or defense (in American English) in ice hockey is a player position that is primarily responsible for preventing the opposing team from scoring. They are often referred to as defencemen, D, D-men or blueliners (the latter a reference to ...

who currently plays under contract with

Luleå HF Luleå Hockeyförening is an ice hockey club from Luleå, Sweden. The club has been playing in the Swedish Hockey League (SHL), the top tier of ice hockey in Sweden, since the 1984–85 season. They are the northernmost team in the league and h ...

of the Swedish Hockey League (SHL). Honka was selected by the

Dallas Stars The Dallas Stars are a professional ice hockey team based in Dallas. They compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Central Division in the Western Conference, and were founded during the 1967 NHL expansion as the Minne ...

in the first round (14th overall) of the

2014 NHL Entry Draft The 2014 NHL Entry Draft was the 52nd NHL Entry Draft. The draft was held on June 27–28, 2014 at the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The top three selections were Aaron Ekblad, Sam Reinhart and Leon Draisaitl, going to the F ...

Playing career

Honka was a top rated prospect who was ranked #11 on the

NHL Central Scouting Bureau The NHL Central Scouting Services (CSS) is a department within the National Hockey League that ranks prospects for the NHL Entry Draft at specific times during the hockey season. Players are ranked based on how well they will translate to the profe ...

final list of 2014 NHL Draft eligible North American skaters. During the 2012–13 season Honka played with the Finland men's national under-18 ice hockey team at both the

2013 IIHF World U18 Championships The 2013 IIHF U18 World Championship was the 15th IIHF World U18 Championship and was hosted in Sochi, Russia. This was also a test event for the facilities to be used in the 2014 Winter Olympics. It began on 18 April 2013 with the gold medal ga ...

and the

2013 Ivan Hlinka Memorial Tournament The 2013 Ivan Hlinka Memorial Tournament is an under-18 ice hockey tournament held in Břeclav, Czech Republic and Piešťany, Slovakia from August 5–10, 2013. As in the previous three years, the venues are Alcaplast Arena in Břeclav and E ...

. Moving to North America for the

2013–14 WHL season The 2013–14 WHL season is the 48th season of the Western Hockey League (WHL). The regular season began on September 19, 2013 and ended on March 16, 2014. The playoffs began on March 27, 2014 following the regular season and ended on May 12, 201 ...

, he competed with Team Finland to win gold at the 2014 World Junior Ice Hockey Championships and was also selected to compete in the 2014

CHL/NHL Top Prospects Game The CHL/NHL Top Prospects Game is an annual event in which forty of the top NHL Entry Draft eligible prospects in the Canadian Hockey League play against each other in an all-star game environment. Players are able to boost their draft ranking w ...

. On 14 July 2014, Honka was signed to a three-year entry level contract with the Dallas Stars. During the 2016–17 season, Honka scored his first career goal on 4 April 2017, a game winning overtime goal in a game against the

Arizona Coyotes The Arizona Coyotes are a professional ice hockey team based in the Phoenix metropolitan area. The Coyotes compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Central Division in the Western Conference and currently play at the Mul ...

. In the following 2017–18 season, Honka was sent down to the Stars AHL affiliate, the

Texas Stars The Texas Stars are a professional ice hockey team in the American Hockey League (AHL) based in Cedar Park, Texas, near Austin, with home games at the H-E-B Center. They are owned by the National Hockey League's (NHL) Dallas Stars and are the ...

, on 31 October 2017. He was later recalled and remained with Dallas to appear in a career high 42 games. Unable to cement a role at the NHL level within the Stars' blueline, Honka as a pending restricted free agent formally requested a trade from the Stars in September 2019. Unable to facilitate a satisfactory trade during the off-season, on October 10, 2019, Honka signed a contract with his original Finnish club, JYP Jyväskylä of the

Liiga The SM-liiga (marketed as just Liiga from 2013 on), (Finnish for ''League'') colloquially called the Finnish Elite League in English or FM-ligan in Swedish, is the top professional ice hockey league in Finland. It is one of the six founding lea ...

. As a restricted free agent, the Dallas Stars would retain his rights. In the 2019–20 season, making his top level Liiga debut, Honka contributed with 4 goals and 15 points through 46 regular season games before the post-season was cancelled due to the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identi ...

. On October 30, 2020, Honka returned to the Dallas Stars organization after he was signed to a one-year, two-way contract worth $700,000 at the NHL level and $90,000 at the AHL level. Honka was placed on waivers by the Stars on 20 January 2021. After going unclaimed Honka was reassigned by Dallas to Texas appearing in 17 games at the AHL level. Unable to further his NHL career, Honka returned to Europe and signed a two-year contract with Swedish club, Luleå HF of the SHL, on 26 May 2021.

Personal life

Honka comes from a family of hockey players; his three brothers also play the same sport. His younger brother Anttoni was drafted in the third round (83rd overall) by the

Carolina Hurricanes The Carolina Hurricanes (colloquially known as the Canes) are a professional ice hockey team based in Raleigh, North Carolina. They compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Metropolitan Division in the Eastern Conference ...

in the

2019 NHL Entry Draft The 2019 NHL Entry Draft was the 57th NHL Entry Draft. The draft was held on June 21–22, 2019 at Rogers Arena in Vancouver, British Columbia. The first three selections were Jack Hughes going to the New Jersey Devils, Kaapo Kakko being sel ...

and currently plays for

JYP Jyväskylä JYP is an ice hockey team playing in the Finnish top division Liiga. They play in Jyväskylä, Finland, at the LähiTapiola Areena. History JYP was founded in 1923. First it was the ice hockey section of the sports club ''Jyväskylän Palloilija ...

of Finland's

Career statistics

Regular season and playoffs

International

Awards and honours

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Honka, Julius 1995 births Living people Dallas Stars draft picks Dallas Stars players Finnish expatriate ice hockey players in Canada Finnish expatriate ice hockey players in Sweden Finnish expatriate ice hockey players in the United States Finnish ice hockey defencemen JYP Jyväskylä players Lahti Pelicans players Luleå HF players National Hockey League first-round draft picks Sportspeople from Jyväskylä Swift Current Broncos players Texas Stars players